Such laws are, in fact, discriminatory. You don’t need them to tell you that; lots of people in the US and elsewhere have raised the same point. Apparently there’s no such law in NYC, which is why they have a women’s topless mystery-reading group (or something like that) in the parks in the spring.
You wouldn’t feel comfortable with it here, but would you feel comfortable doing so on a Spanish beach? The Muslims don’t like that, either. More importantly, do your feelings of discomfort come from a superstitious position, where you fear displeasing your invisible sky-daddy and his pervert prophet? Even more importantly, are these your feelings, or did they come from parental/clerical indoctrination?
More like “Your cultural practices (and not just yours) are backward and totally counter to the mission of education, and our values. The school isn’t going to endorse any of that woo, though learning about it is a good idea. You also ought to drop that nonsense; you’re in the West now, and we have too much woo as it is!”
What is “the mission of education” ? And how does allowing speech constitutes endorsing said speech ?
You have four hours. Phones, earbuds and notes are not allowed. Any student caught cheating will be banned from taking further exams for up to five years.
Who’s “you” and “your”? Everyone involved in this story is a Westerner. Some like this woo, some like that woo; it’s not at all clear to me why one set should be empowered to make the others drop theirs first.
That when you wrote “I’m not the one calling Jews a race, they are,” you failed to address the “well known” fact that one can of course be a Jew regardless of one’s racial and ethnic background, as per the “well known” example.
The mission is to not only instill facts and empirical evidence, but instill appropriate appreciation for facts and empirical evidence. Another mission is to advance progressive principles. It’s one thing (and a very important thing) to teach about the history of religions, and how cultures take shape, and the like. It’s quite another to tacitly or vocally endorse the cultural relativist position that it’s all equally valid and acceptable, even when mutually contradictory, or when its tenets have profoundly, comprehensively negative consequences for society.
“You” refers to the student body, or more accurately, their parents. Those with no woo, and no respect for it, should be empowered. Again, it’s not just about Islam. Complete laicite is the answer here.
Religions make incorrect claims about history, science, and much more. Religion also fuels utter retrograde backwardness around the world, and always has. This nonsense should not stand, or go unchallenged.
Learning about science tends to make one disregard all the yokels who still cling bitterly to utterly wrong and harmful notions about the universe, usually due to religion. Learning about history tends to make one appreciate things like rights for women, workers, racial (and other unchosen, harmless) minorities, and appreciate the struggles inherent in the quest for justice. Learning about the world and its people in a cold, rational, way, without all this mushy relativist show-and-tell, ought to make any rational person prefer Sweden to Saudi Arabia.
Exactly my point about having comparative religion classes that show the history of religion. When it’s all out there, it’s much easier to debunk religion as a whole and show the harm and limitations it always causes. And the history, especially showing how many wars, deaths, crusades are how this “joyous” and “loving” faith came around is essential to getting rid of it.
Is part of this “show & tell” method include the irrational limitations religion imposes on society? Does the poor muslim girl point out how her religion forms laws against her and all muslim women which are considered unlawful and disgraceful in most other places in the world? How does she personally fell about all this? Does the christian boy feel that all the crusades are a “good” thing because it teaches people about the love of Jesus? Is “tradition” enough of an answer to a little orthodox Jewish girl asking why she has to be betrothed and not pick her own mate?
If this is truly the “#1 high school school in the state for diversity” as the OP states, then where’s the discussion about all the culture/religious clashes? Did the kid who showed how to wrap a turban share why he likes doing it or think it’s a waste of time? since you don’t have to wear one in America, why do young American men wear it to begin with? Does it give them more pride among those who don’t? Are they more faithful to their heritage? Do actions speak louder than headwear?
All the yahoo adults who called to pull their children from school over a “Muslim agenda” are protesting entirely on a religious basis, not a safety issue. Isn’t this a pubic school?? As soon as your on the school property, religion is out the window. The parents don’t seem to feel that way.
Ahhh, the wholesome xenophobia-- religion’s greatest gift of all.
People can convert, but many Jewish people still refuse to accept them as “real Jews.”
Obviously no group agrees on anything, and as far as I’m concerned it’s all nonsense anyway, like every religion.
Right. If they let in one religion, they have to let them all in. Where does it stop? Do the Mormons get to proudly proclaim their utterly ahistorical nonsense and have it go unchallenged? Making this a Muslim-only problem is discriminatory and unfair. I reject the politics, agendas, and behaviors of those who are messing with the students and such. I do, however, oppose this sort of cultural relativism from a progressive stance. A friend of mine asked me to read The Righteous Mind not long ago. I really pissed me off. The author describes going to India in the early 1990s, and paints a depressing picture of the classism and misogyny he witnessed up-close, and then eventually he more or less starts to “go native.” It irritates me just to type about it here.
Not necessarily, but I’m a lot more rational than anybody who thinks a snake can talk, or who thinks that widespread sex-negativity is a good thing, or denies evolution, or thinks that prayer somehow influences the outcome of events, or thinks they will be punished by some deity if they don’t wear (or “allow” their offspring not to wear) some arbitrary garment, or…