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Posted on 04/07/2013 12:41:22 PM PDT by rickmichaels
TORONTO - When a single dad signed his nine-year-old daughter up for female-only swim lessons, he didn’t realize he — as a man — was going to be banned from watching her practice.
Chris (who didn’t want his last name published) was shocked when he had the blinds to the viewing area of the Dennis R. Timbrell Recreation Centre pool in Flemingdon Park shut on him and then was told by staffers it was for “religious reasons.”
“I spoke to a staff member and she told me that it’s because of Muslim women, that we’re not allowed to look at them or whatever,” Chris, 38, told the Toronto Sun Friday. “I don’t think religion has a role to play in a public pool.”
Chris said he enrolled his daughter online through the city’s website and registered her for the Ultra Swim 1: Female class – a nine-week course offered for free at the community centre.
Nowhere on the form did it mention that males could not watch the lessons.
So, when he showed up with his child at the pool on March 28 and again on Thursday night, he was confused when told he wasn’t allowed to watch.
“She doesn’t have a lot of friends and I wanted her to swim with girls,” Chris explained. “I don’t know what parent wouldn’t want to watch their child participate. There were other fathers there who weren’t too happy.”
Local Councillor John Parker hadn’t heard of the particular case until the Sun contacted him Friday, but said the dad’s point is a “legitimate one” and raises a “fair issue.”
“If we have a young child and there is a desire for the parent to provide supervision I would hope that we would not be so inflexible,” he said.
The Ward 26-Don Valley West councillor said there are only so many hours available in the pool.
“So we have to decide and we have to determine just what are the options that are available to us and how many hours are there in the day to allow the different options that communities want,” Parker said. “So far the pressure has been to provide hours for women only, this gives rise to the legitimate question: ought we to find time for mixed groups precisely to accommodate the concern that this parent has raised.”
Female-only swim programs began 20 years ago on the basis of “accommodating cultural and religious practices and requirements,” confirmed city aquatics manager Anne Jackson.
“Without a female-only program, there would be women that wouldn’t be able to participate in swimming,” Jackson said. “This is the way it needs to be in order to accommodate the programs. We’re not opening the door to one cultural group only — this is all females we’re accommodating.”
Late last month, Dennis R. Timbrell began a male-only swim course where only men could watch from the sidelines — no moms. The program bred from the same religious/cultural reasons, Jackson said.
If any parents wish to watch their child who is enrolled in a female or male-only swim class, they would have to move them to a mixed boys/girls class that runs three days a week.
The weekly gender-specific swim classes are open to anyone from two to 18, but Jackson said the city won’t consider separating existing classes into younger age groups (that would allow parents of the opposite sex to be present) because it wouldn’t “accommodate the needs of the majority of people who want to participate in a girls-only program.”
She agreed, however, the registration forms should be clearer in stating that only parents of the same gender of the child will be admitted.
“I think that’s a fair criticism,” Jackson said.
There are currently nine pools across Toronto that run the female-only swim program. All pools follow the same policy of not allowing people of the other sex to watch practices, Jackson said.
Another victory for the Religion of Pieces.
Grrrrr......
):^(
Liberalism is a mental disease.
Gender discrimination and religious discrimination. Would this be allowed in the US?
I am trying to be openminded about this but as we hear over and over ad nauseun times change
and if a Christian religion can be forced to go against its tenet to pay for abortions which is everyone agree more serious that women swimming
then the muslims can come into the 21st century and change their so called idicts from allah and treat women like they are human and equal
Toronto is the (non-Hispanic) minority capital of North America.
Although whites are the true minority now.
That excuse doesn't work since this is a girls' swim class, not a women's swim class. If they are trying to play the muslim card then they need to have a muslim only class. He should demand that as her father, his religion demands she be chaperoned by an adult male relative at all times... uh, oops, hmm, isn't that what muslim women have to abide with, too?
You must accept me.
You must show tolerance to me.
My ways cannot be criticized or questioned.
And, oh by the way, my core belief is that you are subhuman, you need to pay a special tax, cannot be allowed to go to school, drive a care, have a job, go out in public, or speak unless spoken too.
And as long as you show Tolerance to me and my friends, we won't have to kill you.
This is classic liberal good cop bad cop.
Bad cop trashes your rights. Good cop comes along and says victim of trashed rights has fair point, I would hope we would not be so inflexible - then does absolutely nothing to change victim keeping getting his rights trashed.
It’s all lip service so they can be on record appearing to be fair but never intending to ever take any actions to change their policies.
Funny how Christians get rolled over on their religious reasons but they sure as hell bend over backwards for every other religion’s “religious reasons”.
Have a separate women’s only or muslims’ only class then.
Can’t use common sense because if they used common sense they couldn’t find a solution that sticks it to Christians.
In this case its guilty white liberals accommodating crazy conservative Muslims. Everyone gets in to the act on this deal.
Bet there would be no accommodation for Orthodox Jews or Christians.
Isn’t Toronto the place with the school that made little girls who were menstruating sit in the back of the class during Muslim prayer time because they were “unclean?”
That’s odd, since Mohammed was a pedophile.
Thanks rickmichaels.
Of course this is Canada, so maybe the muzzies do have the right to prevent other people from watching their children swim.
The solution - pull your daughter out of the swim class. Problem solved.
As long as American Christians offer the other cheek, the Left will continue to slap it.
Muslims get to set the rules.
The world is quickly separating into those who are willing to make demands, and those who are not.
Canadian and all other Christians also.
nope. you know this is all about muslims pushing their agenda and their rules on non-muslims, with the full cooperation of government. you know that’s what this is. you don’t let it get worse and worse.
of you don’t do anything later they’ll say well nobody complained when we did these “accomodations” for swim class, or school swims, or whatever’s next. why now all of a sudden?
they look at non-muslims who get screwed by these policies as someone who should just lie back and take it, who should be grateful someone’s paying attention to them by screwing them.
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