Here’s a photo of 5-year-old Hannah Edwards of Sheffield in the U.K.wearing a summer sundress. Cute, right? Not to British passport authorities terrified of offending radical Muslims somewhere on earth.
Here’s the U.K. Telegraph report (thanks, Jill Zimon of Write Like She Talks) on what happened when Hannah’s mom tried to submit the photo as part of Hannah’s passport application so that the family could take a vacation, not in a Muslim country but in the south of France:
“A five-year-old girl’s passport application was rejected because her photograph showed her bare shoulders.
“Hannah Edwards’s mother, Jane, was told that the exposed skin might be considered offensive in a Muslim country….
“Mrs Edwards, a Sheffield GP, said: ‘I was incensed. I went back home and checked the form. Nowhere did it say anything about covering up shoulders. If it had, I would have done so, but it all seems so unnecessary.
“‘This is quite ridiculous, I followed the instructions on the passport form to the letter and it was still rejected. It is just officialdom pandering to political correctness.
“‘It is a total over-reaction. How can the shoulders of a five-year-old girl offend anyone? It’s not as if anything else was showing, the dress she wore was sleeveless, but it has a high neck.'”
After the debacle at the passport office, Mrs. Edwards spent two hours running around getting Hannah’s photo re-taken and properly signed.
Welcome to the new world order, Mrs. Edwards, where the very worst crime seems to be to defend the radical Islamists who now seem to be our de fact culture czars.