In Brief

In Brief

In Poll, Most Muslim Women Play Down Gender Inequality

---

Muslim women should be allowed to vote, drive and work outside the home, but gender inequality is not a primary problem, a majority of Muslim women said in a new Gallup poll.

The 2005 poll, released Tuesday, questioned 8,000 women about their perceptions of life in Muslim and Western countries. Women were polled in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

A majority said women should be allowed to vote, ranging from 68 percent in Pakistan to 95 percent in Egypt. A majority also said women should be allowed to work at any job they are qualified for, serve in high levels of government and drive unaccompanied. Most of these countries allow women to conduct these activities, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

A vast majority of Muslim women surveyed most admired their society's adherence to Islamic values.

Those sampled said lack of unity, extremism and political corruption were the main problems with their societies. Inequality between the sexes, criticized by many in the West, barely registered with Muslim women. No more than 2 percent of women in Egypt and Morocco said it was an issue. In the more-westernized countries of Lebanon and Turkey, 11 percent said gender inequality was a problem.

The survey was conducted in the women's homes, in rural and urban areas, between August and October.

-- Religion News Service

United Methodists to Confront Gay Issues at 2008 Conference

---

The United Methodist Church is facing a showdown on gay-policy decisions in 2008, similar to those that the Episcopal Church and Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will be dealing with in coming weeks.

That is because the annual meeting of Minnesota Methodists approved several petitions to the denomination's next general conference that endorse openly gay clergy and same-sex marriage.

The closest vote, 358 to 356, backed a proposal to define marriage as between "two adult persons" rather than "a man and a woman" and cease supporting civil laws that require heterosexual definitions of marriage.