Moderation for greater good

I REFER to Tan Sri Mohd Sheriff Mohd Kassim’s letter “Blowing issue out of proportion” (The Star, Jan 19). Being a true moderate, and a strong voice in the group of 25 eminent Malay moderates, he did the right thing to defend the three Malay girls over “...the incident like hugging on stage with the Korean pop star...” which he considers as “harmless”.

Being an old timer, schooled in the western tradition but not necessarily ignorant of Islamic tenets, the good Tan Sri was thinking aloud “..The real issue is how far should we allow the religious authorities to take on the role of moral guardian when this is really a personal matter for the parents to decide how they want to bring up their children..”. It’s a very difficult question to answer if we look from the religious authorities’ perspective.