Muslim Footbaths [MoJ]

  • Thread starter Thread starter justice_mirror
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
justice_mirror said:
This is one of those controversies that completely escapes me. Still, interesting reading…

More opinion…
Click to expand...
from the story:
DEARBORN, Mich. — When pools of water began accumulating on the floor in some restrooms at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and the sinks pulling away from the walls, the problem was easy to p(name removed by moderator)oint. On this campus, more than 10 percent of the students are Muslims, and as part of ritual ablutions required before their five-times-a-day prayers, some were washing their feet in the sinks.

The solution seemed straightforward. After discussions with the Muslim Students’ Association, the university announced that it would install $25,000 foot-washing stations in several restrooms.

But as a legal and political matter, that solution has not been quite so simple. When word of the plan got out this spring, it created instant controversy, with bloggers going on about the Islamification of the university, students divided on the use of their building-maintenance fees, and tricky legal questions about whether the plan is a legitimate accommodation of students’ right to practice their religion — or unconstitutional government support for that religion.

“It’s an awkward thing,” said Alexis Oesterle, a junior. “If I’m sitting with Muslim friends, I wouldn’t want to bring it up. In this country, at this time, it’s not so easy to discuss the issues of Muslims in American society.”
Click to expand...
It seems like a reasonable accomodation. The alternatives seem to be letting them continue to wash their feet in sinks & get water on the floor which poses a hazard OR forbid them to wash their feet in the sinks because it poses a hazard – and that won’t fly.

There’s no Christian equivalent of footwashing but I’m willing to bet that the Michigan University system has accomodated the dietary requirements of Jewish students for a long time and I don’t think any of us would object to that.
 
didymus said:
It seems like a reasonable accomodation. The alternatives seem to be letting them continue to wash their feet in sinks & get water on the floor which poses a hazard OR forbid them to wash their feet in the sinks because it poses a hazard – and that won’t fly.

There’s no Christian equivalent of footwashing but I’m willing to bet that the Michigan University system has accomodated the dietary requirements of Jewish students for a long time and I don’t think any of us would object to that.
Click to expand...
Erm… ritual footbathing is practiced on Holy Thursday in the Latin Rite. Jesus washed the feet of the Twelve Apostles before Easter.
 
Just give each Muslim an old fashioned wash basin. They can fill it with water from the sink, sit on a bench and wash their feet then dump the water down the drain. No way would the cost be evven close to $25,000.
 
Apparently the ACLU has gotten involved; guess on whose side?

tinyurl.com/2ywcu9
Cleansing the ACLU
Michigan and the case of Muslim footbaths.
Click to expand...
Sunday, August 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT The latest battle of religion in the public square is unfolding in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with one of the highest Muslim populations in the country. At the University of Michigan’s local campus, administrators have recently refitted several school bathrooms to include small footbaths in the corner–an accommodation for Muslim students who must perform ritual washing as part of their daily observance. The issue has more than a few of the usual suspects trying to explain their way out of their usual positions on the separation of church and state.
Click to expand...
The Detroit chapter of the ACLU has scrambled to find a way to recuse itself from the matter, claiming that the footbaths qualify as *secular *since they could be used by non-Muslims, :rotfl:] and therefore don’t cross the group’s usual bright church-state line. Further, the ACLU explains, the university’s decision to take on the $25,000 expense was motivated primarily “by health and safety” because some students didn’t like washing their hands in the sinks after others students had washed their feet. If that hadn’t been the case, the group says this religious accommodation would surely have merited greater investigation and criticism.
Click to expand...
. . . . . .
Click to expand...
Truer to form was the Council on American Islamic Relations, which immediately hollered that objections were all a case of Islamaphobia, and fear that the university was going to become “Islamified.” But that’s a hard assertion to prove in an America that frequently goes 10 rounds over the sight of a Christmas crèche in the public square. CAIR’s invocation of American bigotry has become so reflexive that we wonder if its spinners even bother to rewrite their press releases.
Click to expand...
 
Actually, the Muslims will get mad if infidels like us wash our feet in their ablution sink. It’s a religion thing and it could consider to be offensive to people of the religion of peace. When I was working in Saudi Arabia, we were told not to touch anything Islamist. Not once that I saw an infidel washing his feet in that stupid sink.

The ACLU needs to get head out of butt and vigorously defend the Constitution like their campaign to get Christianity out of public.
didymus said:
Apparently the ACLU has gotten involved; guess on whose side?

tinyurl.com/2ywcu9
Click to expand...
 
The ACLU needs to get head out of butt and vigorously defend the Constitution like their campaign to get Christianity out of public
Click to expand...
.

I’m not going to wait for them to act. I think the ACLU’s agenda is anti-Western culture and anti-Christian (and traditional Judaism too). To the ACLU, Islam is exotic, third world and “other” and so they conveniently overlook beliefs and practices of Islam that they would roundly condemn and sue over if they were practiced by Christians.
 
It would seem that a state university accommodating religious practices is a violation of the “separation of church and state”.

But I guess that’s only important if the church is Christian.
 
Well if the footbaths are available in public restrooms, and my feet are dirty from daily activities, then I would be able to use them also. So all the joggers, barefoot walkers (I hate shoes:D ) and mothers with children that have walked in the mud are also free to use them.🙂 I hope everyone avails themselves of the new facilities.
 
KathleenElsie said:
Well if the footbaths are available in public restrooms, and my feet are dirty from daily activities, then I would be able to use them also. So all the joggers, barefoot walkers (I hate shoes:D ) and mothers with children that have walked in the mud are also free to use them.🙂 I hope everyone avails themselves of the new facilities.
Click to expand...
Infidels CAN NOT make use of these Muslim footbaths, just ask any Muslim. If you do then you will defile the baths. But, hey then they will have to build special rooms with locks which contain new foot baths that where only Muslims have keys.

👍
 
KathleenElsie said:
Well if the footbaths are available in public restrooms, and my feet are dirty from daily activities, then I would be able to use them also. So all the joggers, barefoot walkers (I hate shoes:D ) and mothers with children that have walked in the mud are also free to use them.🙂 I hope everyone avails themselves of the new facilities.
Click to expand...
All God’s people are special, except there are those who are more special.
 
StMarkEofE said:
Infidels CAN NOT make use of these Muslim foot baths, just ask any Muslim. If you do then you will defile the baths. But, hey then they will have to build special rooms with locks which contain new foot baths that where only Muslims have keys.

👍
Click to expand...
We have been told that they only take the place of the sinks in which everyone washes their hands, faces etc. 😃 If they are locked and for only special use then it becomes a matter of fraudulent use of public money.:eek: So next time I have a small child with me that has puked in public the foot bath will be a convenient way for me to “hose” her off. Much more sanitary then the sink that I had to use last time. And no I am not being fractious just honest as to the convenience of a new sink that I won;t have to lift the child up toooo.
 
StMarkEofE said:
Infidels CAN NOT make use of these Muslim footbaths, just ask any Muslim. If you do then you will defile the baths. But, hey then they will have to build special rooms with locks which contain new foot baths that where only Muslims have keys.

👍
Click to expand...
Question. If “infidels” cannot use the footbaths because it would defile them, how are the Muslims justifying washing their feet in the sinks…don’t “infidels” use them?

Something sounds not quite true to me.
 
Publisher said:
Question. If “infidels” cannot use the footbaths because it would defile them, how are the Muslims justifying washing their feet in the sinks…don’t “infidels” use them?

Something sounds not quite true to me.
Click to expand...
The footbath police will stand at the sink and refuse any “infidel” from using them. Of course then you have the problem of all those “infidels” using the same bathroom because some of then might have eaten PORK. Thus, if you wash your HAM tainted fingers in the sink the Muslims might be offended.
 
You guys are rediculous: this is the exact kind of attitude I was talking about in my Islamophobia thread in NCR.

Throwing the words ‘infidel’ around assumes that these Muslims in question are radicals. How about you guys go interview every single one. If they’re all radicals, you can throw around the word.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top