Saudi Arabia vs. Sweden

Here is an examples of the epitome of a religious state, contrasted with the epitome of a "secular" or "progressive" state.

Let me preemptively summarize the situation. Sweden mandates "progress". Saudi Arabia mandates Islam.

We notice a curious symmetry between the "secular" principles of progress and the religious principles of Islam. Both display a deep hostility toward other religions that oppose them, and aggressively persecute those religions through law.

Quotes about Saudi Arabia are taken from the Wikipedia article Human Rights in Saudi Arabia.

As an Islamic state, Saudi Arabia gives preferential treatment for Muslims. During Ramadan, eating, drinking, or smoking in public during daylight hours is not allowed. Foreign schools are often required to teach a yearly introductory segment on Islam. Saudi religious police have detained Shi'ite pilgrims participating in the Hajj, allegedly calling them "infidels in Mecca". The restrictions on the Shi'a branch of Islam in the Kingdom along with the banning of displaying Jewish, Hindu and Christian symbols have been referred to as apartheid

Sweden's anti-discrimination laws are as bizarre as they are magical. Hairdressers are not allowed to vary their prices based on gender, putting up the price of a short-back-and-sides towards the £50 mark. Taxis which used to offer special rates to single women going home late at night have been told to stop. Women can swim topless in public pools unless there is a law to require men cover their nipples. Stockholm District Court recently ruled that pregnancy was an illness. Activists are pushing to end gender specific pronouns in the language. More men than women now complain to the discrimination ombudsman.

In Saudi Arabia, the state will tell you not to display Christian symbols in public. In Sweden, the state will often tell you not to display Christian symbols in public (in many circumstances, that qualifies as discrimination, especially if you are at a place of work).

In Saudi Arabia, women are required to wear modest clothes. In Sweden, private institutions cannot discriminate against women wearing immodest clothes, unless men are required to wear the same type of clothes.

Saudi women face discrimination in many aspects of their lives, such as the justice system. Although they make up 70% of those enrolled in universities, for social reasons, women make up 5% of the workforce in Saudi Arabia, the lowest proportion in the world. The treatment of women has been referred to as "sex segregation" and "gender apartheid".

In Saudi Arabia, people are required to be sex-segregated. In Sweden, anti-discrimination law prohibits sex-segregation. These rules are applied to government institutions, as well as private institutions.

According to a 2009 Human Rights Watch report, Shia citizens in Saudi Arabia "face systematic discrimination in religion, education, justice, and employment". Saudi Arabia has no Shia cabinet ministers, mayors or police chiefs, according to another source, Vali Nasr, unlike other countries with sizable Shia populations (such as Iraq and Lebanon) . Shia are kept out of "critical jobs" in the armed forces and the security services, and not one of the three hundred Shia girls’ schools in the Eastern Province has a Shia principal.

We can compare this with racists, sexists, and homophobes, who are discriminated against in Swedish religion, education, justice, and employment. It is important to remember that believing what the Bible says about women submitting to their husbands is "sexist" by any normal modern definition of the word.

Saudi Arabia: Because anti-Shia attitudes are engrained from an early age, they are passed down from generation to generation. This prejudice is found not only in textbooks (often characterizing the faith as a form of heresy worse than Christianity and Judaism), but also within the teachers in the classroom, and even in the university setting. (Wahhabi) teachers frequently tell classrooms full of young Shia schoolchildren that they are heretics. Teachers who proclaim that Shiites are atheists and deserve death have faced no repercussions for their actions, barely even receiving punishment.

We can compare this with Swedish teachers, who are rarely punished for saying that "the pope", "racists", "sexists", "homophobes" are heretics evil.

Jerusalem Post: Sweden v. Religion - Freedom of worship on trial

Rabbi Alexander Namdar and Rebbetzin Leah Namdar have chosen to home-school their children, thus giving them a Jewish education and ensuring they can still live full Jewish lives. 

Sweden has very tight restrictions on home-schooling, allowing it only in what they call “extraordinary circumstances.” In the ultra-secular country of Sweden, religion is not considered an extraordinary circumstance.

The city of Gothenburg is threatening to fine the Namdar family 2400 dollars per week if they do not comply and put their children in public school, which to me seems like nothing short of forced assimilation. If, chas v’chalilah (G-d forbid), the Namdar children are put in public school they would not be able to uphold their orthodox Jewish lives. The city of Gothenburg is not only taking radical steps to assimilate the Namdar family, they are also putting their children at risk of anti-Semitic bullying, or worse. The crime they are committing is trying to give their children a Jewish education and ensuring they stay Jewish in a secular society, all while being a haven for other Jews in the area, providing kosher meals, religious services and learning. For this, they are being persecuted. For this, they may have to leave.

Sweden's education policy is essentially forced integration. Religious subcultures are forcibly assimilated. Children may be Jewish on the Sabbath, or Christian on Sunday, but are required to learn Progressive things on Monday-Friday.

[Saudi Arabian] speech, the press and other forms of communicative media, including television and radio broadcasting and Internet reception, are actively censored by the government to prevent political dissent and anything deemed, by the government, to be offensive to the Wahhabi culture or Islamic morality.

Censorship in Sweden

Sweden prohibits hate speech, and defines it as publicly making statements that threaten or express disrespect for an ethnic group or similar group regarding their race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, faith or sexual orientation.

In Saudi Arabia, it is usually illegal to express disrespect for the prophet Muhammad and the religion of Islam. In Sweden, it is often illegal to express disrespect for the prophet Muhammad and the religion of Islam, and a thousand other religions.

(unless you are criticizing Muhammad for being insufficiently progressive, in which case you are likely to be given leniency)

Homosexuality is frequently a taboo subject in Saudi Arabian society and is punished with imprisonment, corporal punishment and capital punishment. Transgenderism is generally associated with homosexuality.

LGBT Rights in Sweden

The Constitution of Sweden bans discrimination on grounds of "sexual orientation". In 1987 discrimination against gay men and lesbians was included in the section of the penal code which deals with discrimination on grounds of race, etc. In 2008 transgender identity or expression was added to a new unified discrimination code which came into force 1 January 2009.

In Saudi Arabia, public sodomy will typically be punished by imprisonment or whipping. In Sweden, discrimination against sodomy will typically be punished by requiring the discriminating person to pay the "victim" of discrimination a large sum of money. If he does not pay the "victim", the police will seize his assets.