[The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind] Clean Feet in School Could be a Good Thing!

Here's an old story that caught my eye and got me thinking:

Some say schools giving Muslims special treatment
By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

Some public schools and universities are granting Muslim requests for prayer times, prayer rooms and ritual foot baths, prompting a debate on whether Islam is being given preferential treatment over other religions.

The University of Michigan at Dearborn is planning to build foot baths for Muslim students who wash their feet before prayer. An elementary school in San Diego created an extra recess period for Muslim pupils to pray.

At George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., Muslim students using a "meditation space" laid out Muslim prayer rugs and separated men and women in accordance with their Islamic beliefs.

Critics see a double standard and an organized attempt to push public conformance with Islamic law.

"What (school officials) are doing … is to give Muslim students religious benefits that they do not give any other religion right now," says Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Law Center, an advocacy group for Christians.
(Full Story)

There are a few things about this that I find really interesting. First, America's generally unhinged Fundamentalist Christians are always barking about how we need God in our schools.

Well... There ya go, Fundies. Now you have god in your school. So, wash your feet and make the best of it.

The thing is, these "benefits" they are giving Muslim students are part of their religious ritual. I suppose I haven't any problem with that, and I wouldn't have a problem if the schools did what they could to accommodate the religious needs of the Christian religion, Jewish religion, etc., so on and so forth. Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing in the Christian or Jewish worship ritual that requires any sort of "special" benefit or treatment.

Can you think of anything that Christian children are being deprived of in our public schools?

Anything?

Maybe they're being forced to worship Allah with all this...

No?

The Christian prayer ritual is incredibly relaxed and fulfilled at the convenience of the believer, and, unlike the Muslim faith, it's not based upon a specific time of day other than Sunday when kids are out of school anyway (same goes for Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, etc..). Duh!

Nonetheless, not to be outdone, the jealous and paranoid Richard Thompson has a solution that is as silly as this whole argument:

Thompson says such conflicts are bound to proliferate. He and other Christians, he says, are preparing to ask for equal consideration such as a Christian prayer recess.

"What you're going to see out there is more of these kinds of cases as the Muslim community tests how far it can go in the public school system," he says. "If this can happen for Muslims, it can happen for Christians and other religions."

Yep. That's the answer, Dick. Tell me, are Christian children required to pray at specific times during the day so as to fulfill their ritual obligation?

So, why would they NEED freakin' a "prayer recess?!?"

(Man... these people make me stabby!)

Honestly? I'm just glad if our kids are learning in school. I couldn't care less if a kid wants to go pray to his or her god. So long as it doesn't interfere with the teaching or disrupt the class in any way, pray yourselves silly.

Then again, if you've got to rewrite your entire freakin' religion's worship scheme and force people to pray just to make it appear as though it's "just as special" or "popular" as another belief, well... I'm thinking your faith is probably very weak.

Okay... enough childishness. I'm off to eat meatloaf.


-DP

P.S. I do hope that I've not offended anyone with this post. I really do. My goal is just to get folks thinking about things.

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Posted By Dan to The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind at 3/04/2008 04:56:00 PM