Quick, someone get Daniel Pipes, the Islamists are restless. It appears they’re about to take over the NYC school system and perhaps even the City Council. How else to explain that the Council voted with only one nay to add the two most important Muslim holidays to the school calendar.
The only city official standing in the way of the adoption of the measure is the mayor, who remains to be convinced that a religious group comprising 12% of the school population deserves to have its own holiday recognized by the city. If Mayor Bloomberg is smart he’ll get those trusty Islamist-busters, Pipes and Stop the Madrasa on the case. In short order, they make a total mess out of the situation and have Jews and Muslims at each others throats. Which is just as it should be, right?
What puzzles me is that Bloomberg, who is up for re-election, doesn’t seem to be able to do the math: there are 600,000 Muslim voters in N.Y. To diss them doesn’t seem like an optimal election strategy. Furthermore, this comment isn’t going to help things:
The mayor told reporters before the vote that not all religions could be accommodated on the holiday schedule, only those with “a very large number of kids who practice.”
“If you close the schools for every single holiday, there won’t be any school,” he said.
Of course, Bloomberg is also thinking about the flack he’ll catch from the Muslim-haters among the 2-million Jewish voters. So I guess Mike’s solution is to ignore the Muslims and hope they’ll just go away. That oughta work.
It’s weird when political figures people abrogate to themselves definitions of community standards over which they have no more influence than other individuals. Nothing like going on record that some religions are “better” than others.
Here is one instance in which I agree with Bloomberg. I’ll go even further: Why should ANY religious holidays be on the school calender? Public schools are supported by the state. Has no one ever heard of the wall of separation between state and religion? Let us have our secular spring and winter breaks, but let’s not confuse them with with religious holidays.
I think I agree with you in the main, Gene – because I don’t think there should be a national holiday celebrating Christ’s birth, while appreciating that there is a universal desire to celebrate the passing of the seasons. I think our agreement may extend to a belief that the laws of a nation benefit the greatest number of those within the nation if not be based on religious customs, which requires separation between church and state, in order to maintain the right to worship as oneself, rather than others, is inclined.
Yet, I think recognition of various customs both informs and unites as a common group the children who learn that even as certain aspects of their heritage hold value for them, certain aspects of other cultures hold similar value to those who consider them a part of their heritage.
Ritual is an integral part of life for many. For those of us who do not share such customs it seems obvious, none the less, that they do hold great value for others. If we are not constrained to honor them in the same fashion, need we decry the honor others feel they are worth giving? Not through religious holidays, but through the education of children to various religious customs, given equal value.
uh..ok im a dumbass..from the way i speak especially..but
i dont know if your being sarcastic or not..so are you like supporting the adding of the holidays or not?
I for one think that it should..yeah..
“…but through the education of children to various religious customs, given equal value.” is better expressed as
“…the exposure of children to various religious customs…” for which an educational setting seems appropriate, to me.
Perhaps I was being overly earnest. I don’t think the US should have holidays that give precedence to one religion over others. Not ruling out the ways individual groups reflect their beliefs, but eliminating the requirement that everyone participate. Maybe seasonal holidays instead? Including one that honors the place organized religious faiths have in people’s lives, perhaps, for as long as that continues to be true.