The University of Michigan - Dearborn plans to install two Muslim Footbaths so Muslim students can complete required ritual washing before their prayers. The cost of the footbaths will be $25,000 and will come out of the state-run university's coffers thanks to an ACLU decision not to oppose the plan. (The Detroit News: Muslims won't fund footbaths.)
According to the ACLU, the installation plan at state expense is a "reasonable accommodation" because Muslim's are currently washing their feet in sinks and thereby spilling the water on the floor. What the ACLU calls "reasonable accommodation" I call "hypocrisy". State funds are being used to install a religious item at a state university. How does that not constitute state sponsorship of a religion? How does this not violate the First Amendment?
The ACLU is quick to jump all over any public religious displays, even if the funding for those displays comes from a private source. Donate a statue of the Ten Commandments to a public park and the ACLU is all over that one. Have the Knights of Columbus put up a Nativity Scene on public land, even though it's paid for privately, and the ACLU is all up-in-arms. But public installation of Muslim footbaths? That's a "reasonable accommodation".
There comes a point where one must conclude that the ACLU is not so much in favor of a separation of church and state as they are in favor of a separation of Christianity and state. I have little doubt that the ACLU would not be supporting the use of state funds for the installation of any Christian or Jewish religious items at UMD, but they are silent when it comes to Muslim items. The hypocrisy in the ACLU's position is blatantly obvious.
1 comment :
From the pinko liberal standpoint, 'reasonable accomodation' sounds like the ACLU trying to add language that was not already there in the founding documents.
Does it take such a gigantic leap to ask a kid to bring a little plastic tub from home and keep it in his or her locker.
If someone is going to be so ostentatious in the practice of religion that it is in the face of the other students then every practitioner of any religion has the right to do that and it's ludicrous to even consider that possibility.
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