How much your partner respects your boundaries is a good indication of how they’ll treat you as your relationship moves forward. And if they trick you and prank you without any care for your feelings or your complicated relationship with your culture and religion, then maybe it’s time to move on.

One redditor, who goes by the nickname Ileriatis and was raised as a Turkish Muslim, turned to the AITA community for their words of wisdom. He was considering moving to a new place after his boyfriend, J, tricked him into eating pork on his birthday.

Now, even though the redditor admits that he’s progressive, he also feels like his boyfriend, a proud atheist, disrespected his religious beliefs. So Ileriatis wanted to get the internet’s take on whether he’s overreacting or if him getting angry was par for course. You’ll find the full story below, dear Pandas.

A redditor, who is a progressive Muslim, shared how his partner tricked him into eating pork

Image credits: Bexx Brown-Spinelli (not the actual photo)

The AITA community overwhelmingly said that Ileriatis wasn’t doing anything wrong. His bf overstepped his boundaries and broached a taboo topic in a very disrespectful way. The fact that he “was in hysterics” perfectly shows how he views belief systems that aren’t his own.

Actually, imagine somebody besides a college student feeding their partner pork in secret and what the backlash would be in the media and in society. Whatever your views on religion, you don’t go about breaking taboos willy-nilly just for a bit of fun. It’s only a joke if both sides are laughing.

And that’s exactly what British stand-up comedian Ariane Sherine, who is half-Asian, told Bored Panda during an earlier interview. “Humor defuses a situation, so if you claim ‘oh, it’s only a joke, I didn’t mean it’ then it often acts as a kind of mitigating factor. But of course, racist jokes are harmful and offensive,” she said.

One example of harmful and racist comedy that Ariane gave us is the output of the late British comic Bernard Manning. The comic “used to say, ‘I’m not racist, I make jokes about everyone,’ but if your jokes incite racial hatred, they aren’t jokes,” Ariane pointed out.

Just because somebody is more progressive doesn’t automatically negate all of the cultural and religious traditions that they grew up with. The Holy Quran forbids Muslims to eat pork, as it is one of the foods considered to be forbidden or haram. One exception to this rule, according to The National, is if one of the faithful were starving and there was nothing else to eat but pork.

In the Muslim faith, pork is considered to be an impure and unhealthy food. Whether this is or isn’t the case scientifically doesn’t change the fact that this belief is a part of Islam and ought to be respected by others.

Here’s how people have been reacting to the story. Most supported the original poster and said it was all right for him to be mad

You wouldn’t serve pork to a Muslim or someone of the Jewish faith, you wouldn’t feed a Hindu beef, and you wouldn’t give serve a devout Christian meat on a Friday. Even if someone’s an atheist, it doesn’t automatically mean that their ability to think and be polite automatically leaves them. Which makes what Ileriatis’ partner did even more unreasonable. What do you think the redditor should do, dear Pandas?

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