Loony Religious Leaders. Every Country Has Some

Some are just loonier than others:

Australia's most senior Muslim cleric has suggested that women who do not wear headscarves are to blame for sexual assaults, comparing them to uncovered pieces of meat.

Sheikh Taj El-Din Hamid Hilaly, the mufti of Sydney's biggest mosque, said in a sermon that sexual assaults might not happen if women wore a hijab and stayed at home.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the back yard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem," Hilaly said during a Ramadan sermon, according to a newspaper translation.

Keysar Trad, Hilaly's spokesman, said the Egyptian-born cleric had been lecturing about 500 followers on the sin of adultery.

"He's talking about those people who prey on others, whether men or women, who seek to engage in sexual conduct outside of marriage, and do so through alluring types of attire," he said.

The meat comments, Trad said, referred to prostitutes.

Did I miss the real story here? Cats are eating Australian prostitutes?

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