General Chat

Roxanne, I feel very strongly on this one. My father spent 2 years in a Russian concentration camp in 1939. As a teenager he endured unimaginable horrors including knowing families had killed one of their other children to feed to the others in order they might survive. No food was available other than what they could find. I grew up in a community where many other people suffered similarly. Their crimes? They were Polish Jews, priests....In other words the population deemed them unacceptable. Have we not yet learnt not to judge others and live side by sidein peace?

Not judging by some of the replies on here Teresa sadly. I also think it says a lot that this 'story' was deemed newsworthy in the first place. It just stirs up bad feeling against Muslims and brings out the closet racists.

Linda, what's new? Big companies do it all the time if there is money to be made. Nothing new there.

I can't see the problem - Anyone can go in the park, but you have to respect the organisers wishes, just as if I invited you to my house or if I was organising a dinner out and had privatley booked a resturant and I asked that smokers go outside you/I would hope that you respected that. Alton towers haven't double booked anything - the wedding is the day before, the wedding couple haven't booked the theme park for the day after! they said they planned to use it, just as I may have planned to use it that day. It all boils down to respect at the end of the day, and I think that the muslims have a right to say please respect our religion, if you can do that then please join us for the day. Joanne

If I've read the thread correctly, no-one has sold anyone out. The wedding party is due to take place the day before the park is hired for the private party. The wedding couple had planned for their guests to enjoy Alton Towers the day after the wedding. There was no way for Alton management to second-guess this and in any event they still can - Islamic Leisure will sell a ticket to anyone who wants to buy one who will abide by the 'rules of the day'. They are entitled to impose those rules in the same way that any group who hires the whole park can. Re-reading the original post/news article, it seems to me that the whole article was biased from the start. Given that so many religious and other groups organise events for themselves all the time, I really don't see what the fuss is about. The facts that other countries are more restrictive or that christians have been killed by muslims or muslims have been killed by christians, are irrelevant. If a body count is wanted, many more muslim civilians have been killed by military personnel than the other way round. Having this kind of event in no way reflects on the plight of people, soldiers or civilians caught in a war zone. It's not Alton Towers being greedy, they are just doing what they do for all the rest of the days of the year - hiring out their facility to anyone who wants to pay the required fee.

I've spent a good while reading right through all the comments here, and these are my thoughts: At first i did think it sounded a bit exclusive, but then I realised that: Each year Alton Towers has the Ultimate Event, in May, for Christian teenagers, with Christian bands playing all evening. My kid's youth group usually go. For many years, until recently, a group of Christian churches hired out the Warwickshire Agricultural Showground each August for a week of worship, prayer, seminars and family fun. Ok, so you didn't have to have a certificate to prove you were a Christian but you certainly had to abide by the site rules. Last summer my sons went to Newday, a Christian youth camp which took over the Newark Showground and Notts County Football Club too. If someone had come to the stadium meetings and started a football match on the pitch, EVEN THOUGH that is what usually happens there, they would have been asked to leave! This summer they will be at the Uttoxeter showground...the kids have to sign a code of conduct- no smoking, drinking, foul language- but you can be sure plenty of that goes on when the ground is used for it's regular purpose! So I feel that when any group legitimately hire out a location they should be able to set the ground rules according to their own values. Anyone joining them should respect these standards. Denise

So who nudged this at 5.07am then? Mandy :)

Teresa, Your story is awful,I can only Imagine the suffering you Father endured, I wish we could live in peace it would be a wonderful world thats for sure. Unfortunatly some people will never understand or care,its a sad state of affairs I agree, if only we could learn to respect eachothers faith,beliefs it would happen. Roxanne x

CANCELLED CANCELLED CANCELLED LOL DUE TO LACK OF SALES OF TICKETS.