Muslim foot baths!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Jul 31 2007, 02:43 PM) [snapback]488209[/snapback]</div>

Why aren't they defending the guy charged with hate crimes for putting a Koran in a toilet at Pace University?

http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a.../107310034/1002

I'm pretty sure they defended the "artists" who put crucifixes in urine and sculpted Christian figures out of elephant dung. They ought to at least be consistent.

 

When I was 12, my brother 9 and my sister 6 we went on a trip to Italy, Germany, Austria and Switzerland with my parents...all in 21 days. In July/August. Plus a week visiting relatives. Whew.

Well, when we were in Italy we stayed in a very nice hotel. It looked like it had two toilets in the bathroom. Only one didn't have a seat/lid like the other. What are they we asked my parents. They paused for a moment, then said....why they're to wash your feet. Made perfect sense to us Californians used to walking barefoot everywhere in the summer time. So there we were in Italy in August...washing our feet in the bidet.

BTW It worked perfectly for the job.

But I guess Muslims would never accept washing their feet in the toilet. Given my choice of the sink or the toilet, I'd wash my feet in the toilet. Of course, I'd also probably carry some moist towelettes and just take my shoes off and use those to wash my feet.

 

Will they allow beer in the soda machines? Many students drink religiously.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jul 31 2007, 03:07 PM) [snapback]488222[/snapback]</div>

Or you could do it like we do at the beach -- have a little foot bucket by the door for everybody to dunk their feet in to wash off the sand. (What's a little athlete's foot among friends?)

Of course, if you're in the city and are wearing shoes and bathe regularly, just how dirty are your feet going to be??

I know, I know. Religious ritual. Still, not my problem and I'm not paying.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Jul 31 2007, 12:12 AM) [snapback]487855[/snapback]</div>

Would there be a difference between burning in hell and spending an eternity with the likes of you? I'd rather be eaten up as worm food and pooped out as worm crap. Reality is(not truth, cause deluded people have their own truths) you'll be embalmed in a wooden box for a couple thousand years and then end up with same fate as me after the box decomposes. Sorry to burst your bubble about the fairy tale bs about hanging out on the cloud tops with jesus for admitting that you're sinful and "loving" him no matter what. I know that's what your parents and pastor told you, but sorry, Jesus? He's worm food a thousand times over.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Jul 31 2007, 09:06 AM) [snapback]487971[/snapback]</div>

During my medical school years, I always had the honor to cover sabbath shifts for the orthodox jews. Every Friday to Saturday shift(yeah like I didn't want my fridays-saturdays off). I actually didn't mind, cause these orthodox classmates of mine were always very pleasant. What I did think was funny was that the non practicing jews were the ones who always complained the loudest against the orthodox jews.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Jul 31 2007, 11:43 AM) [snapback]488209[/snapback]</div>

Not that I agree with the rationale, but did you not read the article that you linked in your original post in this thread?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(formerVWdriver @ Jul 31 2007, 02:15 PM) [snapback]488227[/snapback]</div>

You're not paying for it. The students are. It's being paid for out of student fees.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Jul 31 2007, 03:09 PM) [snapback]488331[/snapback]</div>

The wash basin itself is not for practicing a religion. It's for washing the feet.

The University happens to have a growing number of students that wash their feet PRIOR to their <protected> religious practice.

Seeing that the students are endangering themselves, and possibly others, by washing their feet in the sinks, the University is providing foot washing basins.

As the basins are not for the exclusive use of just the Muslim students, but are available for any student that needs to wash their feet (or, someone else's? check your bible), I cannot see this as violating any sort of establishment clause.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Jul 31 2007, 05:09 PM) [snapback]488331[/snapback]</div>

And the school couldn't use student funds for this without student approval.

Who says they have no other use? And who says other students who are not muslim can't use them? If the students approved of them either by direct vote or a vote of an elected student council, then they can use the funds to make the improvements. I don't hear anyone objecting to the use of the funds to provide space for mothers that are breastfeeding, yet the male students receive no benefit from this expenditure.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Jul 31 2007, 06:50 PM) [snapback]488378[/snapback]</div>

(accommodated)

There is.

There has been.

How many of us grew us eating meatless lunches in public school on Friday? *I'm* not Catholic. I haven't checked our school lunch menu lately, but since the Pope says it's OK to do burgers on Friday, I imagine the school lunch menu has changed. There is always a vegetarian alternative every day. Does that mean school advocate Hinduism or Buddhism?

We used to have a Maypole dance at the Spring Solstice in my elementary school. Does that mean schools advocated Wicca?

The fact that breastfeeding has been forbidden in public didn't seem to hinge on it's being mentioned or not in the Constitution. If it's not mentioned in the Constitution, why did women have to fight for their right to breastfeed? There was a need, the University met it. There is a need for footbathing for whatever reason. The University is meeting that need too. In fact that need is greated since it is based on safety, rather than preference on the part of the breastfeeding mothers and embarassment on the part of everyone else. If the breastfeeding mothers want to wash their babies cloth diapers in the footbaths, nothing is going to prevent it. That doesn't make them holy diaper dunking fonts.

Once again, authorizing student funds for footbathing basins is NOT an endorsement of any religion. A footbath is not a religious icon or implement. It's.....a footbath.

Places to wash your feet are not religious. The fact that a the muslim students are using them before prayer doesn't make them equivalent to a baptismal font.

People are usually baptized ONCE in their lives. This takes place in an organized ceremony in a special place, like a temple or church. It is not something that happens during the course of daily activities, such as going to school. I imagine you can also find schools that have shared their space with churches; the churches holding their services on campus on Sunday when there IS NO SCHOOL. I know that our local school district has leased Mildred Hale Jr. High to the Horizon Church for their use for....20 years or so. That means that school is currently a church. Services are held in the auditorium. Sunday school in the classrooms. And I believe they use the classrooms for private school during the rest of the week. And the campus has never looked better. Much better maintained than when the school district was in charge. (budget cuts you know)

There are plenty of places of quiet contemplation that can be used for prayer in Universities and schools. As I said, one student has used our paperback room for his prayers a few times. That doesn't make it a mosque.

The fact is that every religious and belief system is accommodated in schools. None is endorsed.

Mountain out of a molehill. Neocons swarming around the nest. Like the Muslims using footbaths is somehow the same threat to Christianity that Gay Marriage is to the institution of Marriage. Sorry, just don't see it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jul 31 2007, 08:49 PM) [snapback]488427[/snapback]</div>

This is a completely bogus argument and you know it. The basins are only being installed so Muslims can practice their religous ritual. Nobody else has requested them for any reason. I wonder if you would be so accommodating of student fees being used for Jewish washing practices. Would you? As for your name calling (again and again and again), no one is saying it is a threat, just calling out the hypocrisy of the university for being selectively tolerant. Efescu is probably right... they are doing it make the school more attractive to Muslims, which translates into more money for the school. And as anyone that has funded a child's education at a university knows, it is all about the money.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(05_SilverPri @ Aug 1 2007, 02:05 AM) [snapback]488514[/snapback]</div>

I find it fascinating that those who protest most about the separation of church and state have no issues at all as the state and the mosque become one. It highlights the duplicity of those who really harbor much more sinister thoughts about [Western] religions and use an interpretation of the US Constitution as a club to have away at them.

There is a part of me that hopes that they install the wash basins for the MUSLIMS and then the entire student body partakes, especially women in modern western swim ware I think that Playboy would have an entire issue devoted to it. Would probably sell big time on college campuses

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 1 2007, 09:02 AM) [snapback]488588[/snapback]</div>

I would have two concerns about this. 1) Will future requests for religous accomodations by other faiths be provided for as willingly out of student fees as this one was? 2) Who decides what "over the line" means. Since state funds are not being used directly to fund this, would it be ok to use that money to build a confessional for Catholics? Supply the students with copies of the Bible/Koran/whatever they use?

I think the UofM is doing this because of the large population of Muslims in the Michigan area, and are thus trying to cater to prospective students. Nothing wrong with that, but what is next and where is the line?