Posted on 04/04/2007 2:31:12 PM PDT by markedmannerf
In a matter of weeks, the school board will approve a calendar for the 2008-2009 school year. County Muslims are hoping that for the first time it will include a closing date for the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitre, which marks the end of the Ramadan month of fasting.
Bashar Pharoan, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, is encouraged because he said there was no vocal opposition to the holiday expressed at the three meetings of the calendar committee he attended. The committee is appointed to come up with a proposed calendar for the superintendent.
Pharoan sees that as a step toward a calendar of equality that normally encompasses the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as well as Easter and Christmas.
Muslims believe the Islamic holy days should be considered equal to Jewish holy days. They have lobbied the board for four years to close schools when the two Islamic holidays fall on school days.
"We are asking for equal treatment," Pharoan said, noting that calendar committee rules prevent it from conducting votes or keeping a written record.
Pharoan told the board that three people on the calendar committee had raised concerns about the Muslim holidays but "no one objected" to the holidays.
However, Brice Freeman, a schools spokesman, later said, "that wasn't the case. Many committee members were really kind of concerned."
Pharoan nevertheless labeled the lack of vocal objections on the calendar committee "a consensus."
But schools Superintendent Joe A. Hairston told the board that information describing it that way should be considered "inaccurate."
The calendar committee is advisory in nature. It sends a recommendation to the superintendent who then submits a proposal to the school board.
(Excerpt) Read more at communitytimes.com ...
The Muslims are not going to be loving life when the tide finally turns. And they are pushing and pushing in a way that it inevitably will.
Smart move by the CAIR crowd...they’ll have all the kids supporting them...who don’t care what it takes to get another holiday.
Sort of like taking off martin luther kings birthday,
NO. I’ll work.
Christmas, Easter, Memorial and Labour days, oh yeah and Washingtons birthday and the 4th of july.
Mooselimb holiday? f-that.
What percent of the kids are Muslim? What percent are Jews? What percent are Christian? Etc.
When I went to school in MD, they never closed for Yom Kippur, Rosh Hoshanna, Passover, Ascension Thursday, or the Immaculate Conception. Why should they close for Eid? Or is that Eat Me?
It doesn’t matter what %. Political Correctness is what matters. If all this nonsense keeps up, people are going to start dipping bullets in pig blood. Just an observation.
They could have just shut up and either went home, or conformed to our ways.
Instead, they’ll force us to revolt violently against them.
It is “Bite me”.
Muslims are tied with the Buddhists at .05%.
my work is pretty clever in this account.
we get the major holidays off and you get 5 “personal choice” holidays. you can take those days off whenever you want and call them whatever “holiday” you choose.
then, nobody can say “their holiday” is being ignored.
clever ;-)
when do ALL the other religions start demanding their day out of school?
When Postal workers start taking the days off.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So..what’s next? The Mormon Pioneer Day? Mormons are likely .05% of the Maryland population too.
Government schools never were, are not now, and never can be religiously neutral. No matter what they do they **will** establish the religious worldview of some and trash that of others.
This Muslim holiday request is merely one tiny example of why government schools can not be religiously neutral. It is impossible for the government school to equally acknowledge with a holiday, or in its studies, every possible religion of every possible religious group in their communities. Impossible.
It is also impossible for the government to equally study every culture with its religious beliefs and myths, values, and ethics.
The government MUST make choices and exclusions. Those choices and exclusion are not now, or ever will be, religiously neutral in content or consequences.
Solution. Abolishment of government schools, followed with complete privatization of universal K-12 education.
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