April 12, 2007

Minnesota Dhimmitude Continues Apace

Katherine Kersten reports in today's Minneapolis Star-Tribune that the state of Minnesota bars Christians from any expression of their faith on state- and city-run colleges -- but are ready and willing to create prayer facilities for Muslims. The addition of foot-washing basins for their daily ablutions contrasts with their heretofore stringent policy of promoting or favoring religions:

Separation of church and state is clearest at the college during the Christmas season. A memo from Cusick and President Phil Davis, dated Nov. 28, 2006, exhorted supervisors to banish any public display of holiday cheer: "As we head into the holiday season ... "all public offices and areas should refrain from displays that may represent to our students, employees or the public that the college is promoting any particular religion." Departments considering sending out holiday cards, the memo added, should avoid cards "that appear to promote any particular religious holiday."

Last year, college authorities caught one rule-breaker red-handed. A coffee cart that sells drinks and snacks played holiday music "tied to Christmas," and "complaints and concerns" were raised, according to a faculty e-mail. College authorities quickly quashed the practice. ...

Muslim prayer is an increasingly controversial issue. Many Muslim students use restroom sinks to wash their feet before prayer. Other students have complained, and one Muslim student fell and injured herself while lifting her foot out of a sink.

Some local Muslim leaders have advised the college staff that washing is not a required practice for students under the circumstances, according to Davis. Nevertheless, he says, he wants to facilitate it for interested students. "It's like when someone comes to your home, you want to be hospitable," Davis told me. "We have new members in our community coming here; we want to be hospitable."

So the college is making plans to use taxpayer funds to install facilities for ritual foot-washing. Staff members are researching options, and a school official will visit a community college in Illinois to view such facilities while attending a conference nearby. College facilities staff members are expected to present a proposal this spring.

College officials claim that the additions do not promote Islam or its practice, but merely make the campus more hospitable to Muslims. MCTC didn't worry about hospitality during Christmas, although they want credit for offering fish in the cafeteria during Lent. As Kersten asks, would MCTC have offered to build baptismal fonts if Christian evangelists had injured themselves anointing people in bathroom sinks as well?

It's difficult to see this as an isolated incident here in the Twin Cities. In the space of a few months, the burgeoning Muslim community has demanded that the residents here accommodate them in strange ways. The Traveling Imams stunt produced a demand to the Metropolitan Airport Commission for a special "prayer room" for Muslims, which the MAC eventually rejected. Muslim cabbies demanded to know whether airport travelers had alcohol in their baggage and refused to service those who did. Muslim cashiers at Target refused to check out products containing pork.

To all of these requests, the answer should have been: get over yourselves. If Muslims don't want to touch pork products, then they should not work as cashiers in grocery stores. Foot washing should be done at home, if one does not want to risk injury by putting their feet in the sinks of public bathrooms. We are not required to accommodate personal religious practices in the workplace -- especially when the same facilities refuse to even acknowledge the existence of every other religion in their environments.

In the meantime, I look forward to the installation of holy-water fonts and mezuzahs to the walls of MCTC, so that they can facilitate the prayer rituals of all faiths.

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Comments (18)

Posted by syn [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 11:53 AM

It's not about religion it's about the Collective need to cover another group under the umbrella of identity politics.

Problem is somewhere down the road Peace Studies, Womyn's Studies, Black Studies, Gay/Lesbian Sudies will be under the thumb of Islamic Studies and I don't believe the Collective will appreicate how good they had it when they were once Emperor of the groupthink.

Posted by rogersump [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 12:09 PM

When the left sees Christians they want freedom FROM religion. It's almost as if they are threatened with being reminded that they might be held morally accountable to anything. When they look at everyone else it becomes Freedom OF Religion. They are not threatened by the religions with which they are not familiar. They are so profoundly inconsistant to THEIR own advantage.

Posted by Brendan [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 12:30 PM

If baby wipes are good enough to clean my little one's hinnie, then why aren't they or some other towellette good enough for feet? I've used them to remove pipe solvent from my hands before it attaches to the skin, and they work great. This makes no sense, except that liberals are determined to bow to any culture that is non-Christian, even if it means that they sow the seeds of the destruction of their own belief system. When the day comes when the Islamicists push for full Sharia, it may be too late to resist. This is what we conservatives like to call a slippery slope, and for good reason.

Posted by negentropy [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 1:01 PM

Oh boy. Can't wait for the hue and cry raised the first time someone whizzes in the ritual foot-washing bowl.

Will there be separate bowls for sunnis and shiites, after all, how will that devout sunni feel after washing his feet after a filthy shiite? And vice versa?

Posted by Rose [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 1:13 PM

The Liberals are busy giving the appearance of favoring the one religion that has proven itself in the past ready, willing and able to be the army for Socialism.
Some of the former muslims who are traveling in America TRYING to give out the alarm have provided DOCUMENTATION that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem from the 1930-1940's provided 2 full Panzer Divisions of muslim soldiers to Hitler for his "National Socialists Workers" Party, and they proved to be the bloodiest of all the Panzer Divisions, particularly in slaughtering the civilian populations of Christians and Jews and whoever else offended them.

Their gift of 2 divisions' full of muslim soldiers gave Hitler a total of 7 Panzer divisions altogether.

The Liberals seem well-bent on catering to the most militant elements of the Islamic faith - not merely in trying to give them a place of refuge, as America has always given members of ALL faiths, within her decidedly Christian heritage.

Patrick Henry - It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.

http://www.patriotist.com/htc1892.htm
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
HOLY TRINITY CHURCH v. U.S.
143 U.S. 457, 12 S.Ct. 511, 36 L.Ed. 226
Feb. 29, 1892[1]
There is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning. They affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons. They are organic utterances. They speak the voice of the entire people. While because of a general recognition of this truth the question has seldom been presented to the courts, yet we find that in Updegraph v. Comm., 11 Serg. & R. 394, 400, it was decided that, "Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law of Pennsylvania; * * * not Christianity with an established church and tithes and spiritual courts, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men." ....

****************************

The actions of the Liberals in these MILITANT encouragements of our bloodiest enemies, NOT MERELY in "bending over backwards to make innocent elements of a common faith feel UNPERSECUTED" - but in deliberately encouraging the MILITANT factions - cannot be taken by the ordinary citizens of America as anything BENIGN, in our present political climate.

It has been pointed out that "moderate" elements in America cannot afford to speak out against the radical and militant elements in the CLIMATE afforded to the militants by American Liberals, for fear of the militants being ALLOWED FULL ACCESS to work upon the "moderates" AS FULLY IN AMERICA as they do in their own homeland, which they FLED, to America FOR ASYLUM TO ESCAPE such brutal activities.

Posted by Rose [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 1:22 PM

They are not threatened by the religions with which they are not familiar. They are so profoundly inconsistant to THEIR own advantage.

Posted by: rogersump

**************************

They will not long consider the catering to the muslim MILITANTS to be "to their own advantage", once they take it to the level they have fast approached of allowing the militants to set up Sharia Law trumping the American civil local govt in their own neighborhoods.

They will not be happy campers once they realize the full extent of the meaning of "dhimmi" status, at home on a daily basis.

Regardless of how ecstatic that Pelosi has appeared in all her photo shoots with the scarf on her head - no doubt telling herself it is not significantly different than when 40's and 50's women wore scarves when they left the house on days of windy or other inclement weather - just another modern "retro" look!

Posted by Count to 10 [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 1:44 PM

Idealy, this should be evaluated from a standpoint that is deliberately ignorant of religion.
Essentually, does the expressed demand by the studdent body alone justify the expence? If a similar number of students requested, say, addtional bike racks be installed for a similar cost, would that request be granted?

Could the request be granted by installing a spigot near a drain on a slab of concrete outside?

Posted by Only_One_Cannoli [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 1:50 PM

Affirmative Action for religion. I love this Davis quote:

"It's like when someone comes to your home, you want to be hospitable," Davis told me. "We have new members in our community coming here; we want to be hospitable."

But what about the Christians in your home?

Nah, nah, they're old guests -- been in our home since God knows when. And ... truth is when you outnumber the rest of us here we're sort of rude to you but our Muslim friends are okay 'cause, well they're just a little group and everyone's always calling them awful names and besides we might get sued if someone slips around the sink plus maybe if we get more of em in here they'll kinda balance out all the Jesus people.

The president of MC&TC might appreciate a friendly hello. phil.davis@minneapolis.edu

Posted by BD [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 2:08 PM

It's hard to tell for sure what we're seeing here:

MCTC succumbing to multicultural claptrap; or MCTC feeding a bit of our culture to the Muslim "grievance" crocodile, hoping it will be satiated.

It'd be interesting to see a lawsuit challenging the expenditure of state funds for this purpose - first, it's obviously favoring one religion (facilitating its practice) over another, which isn't permissible under the current construction of the First Amendment; and it's obviously a violation of the supposed policy not engaging in activities which suggest the college favors one religion over another.

But enough of the legalities. MCTC is ignoring the very essence of grievance-mongering, which is that it cannot be satiated.

The correct answer is "I'm sorry, but we don't do that sort of thing here."

Posted by Anthony (Los Angeles) [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 3:27 PM

It may be disguised as religion, but actions like these are nothing more or less than cultural imperialism and reverse colonization.

Posted by Bostonian [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 4:50 PM

BD:

"... the very essence of grievance-mongering, which is that it cannot be satiated."

That's brilliant.

Posted by Brian in Calgary [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 8:14 PM

Political correctness, thy name is Christophobic bigotry.

Posted by conservative democrat [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 8:21 PM

The Muslim scare card, thats one of my all-time favorites. The "pretty soon we'll be under Sharia Law" boy thats a good one too. So its treat all religions equally,except if they dress funny and have funny customs? The next line will be " the dems and radical muslims are in cahoots to take over the US." Or"those people don't look like us, their dangerous." People have said the same things about Jews thruought history.

Posted by superchachi [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 8:26 PM

It'll be a joy to camp-out near the non-Infidel wash tubs with my "Everything I need to know about Islam, I learned on 9/11" t-shirt.

and negentropy, I can't promise I won't accidentally find myself standing over one.

Posted by Neo [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 9:54 PM

washing is not a required practice for students

Whaooo.

Posted by viking01 [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 10:54 PM

Foot washing bowls???? I thought those were spittoons!!

Errrrrrrr.. Sorry.

Just wait until some fraternity starts floating pork rinds in those things or maybe giving them an occasional splash of beer or bourbon in the interest of athletes' foot control.


Someone should ask these university administrator blow hards if they plan on installing Leninist Reading Rooms for their own religious practices.

Posted by mefolkes [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 12, 2007 11:04 PM

Heck, when large numbers of Muslim Somalis started flooding into my turkey processing plant, several of the Somalis washed their feet simply by putting them in the toilet and flushing. The school could learn a cheap lesson from our experience.

Posted by jerry [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 13, 2007 6:54 PM

CD:

I don't want to disolution you but what the Minnesota Muslims are asking is to impose Sharia on the rest of us.