Posted on 12/17/2007 6:14:15 PM PST by kellynla
A Minnesota community college has "a Muslim place of worship" featuring "a schedule for Islam's five daily prayers," according to a local newspaper columnist who visited the campus.
Tax-supported Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minn., also has a "sign requesting that shoes be removed" and a barrier that divides men's and women's "prayer spaces," writes Katherine Kersten of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
College officials denied it was anything more than a "meditation" room available for "all faiths."
The description of the facility, however, led one faculty member to tell Kersten the room is "unprecedented" and "goes beyond religious toleration."
"For all practical purposes, this meditation room is essentially a Muslim prayer room," said Chuck Chalberg of Normandale's history faculty.
WND has reported on "accommodations" for Muslims in public institutions, such as schools and airports, and the outrage triggered by the expenditure of public funds on a religion-specific facility.
At Normandale, Kersten reported, an "arrow informed worshippers of the direction of Mecca, and literature urged women to cover their faces."
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
ACLU, paging the ACLU...(crickets)
“College officials denied it was anything more than a “meditation” room available for “all faiths.””
Sure it is. Tax payer dollars for a mosque?
If the facility is truly for all faiths, they would allow a Christmas service this Sunday, right?
Exactly!
Original Kersten backgound piece....http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1940621/posts
The Christian Reading Room shall be closed and boarded up, but in the interests of tolerance and multi-culturalism, all students are welcome to use the “meditation room.” Please observe the strict usage rules and gender separation. Please remove shoes and women should wear veils to avoid distracting male meditators. Meditation shall be held five times a day, and shall be led by a member of the student body. Any deviation from the meditative practices used by the majority of the room’s current occupants will be grounds for eviction.
Oh yeah, and prayer to any being or deity other than Allah will be frowned on... Severely.
Nah, call the Americans United for the separation of church and state. If the muslims want their own prayer room they can rent one from a strip mall across the street from the college. Kind of like how the LDS have their LDS centers for their college students near major schools.
To whom it may concern in Minnesotta,
,someone please use this room besides muslims,,,gotta stop it somehow..
Alabama
I’m thinking I’ll have to show up there around prayer time, with a gut full of my famous black bean chili ... then let nature take its course.
Of course it’s a Mosque. Imaging the ****storm if some infidel Christians got in there and had a prayer session. It would be an Insult to Islam®, heads would roll (literally).
“a barrier that divides men’s and women’s “prayer spaces,”
Isn’t that gender discrimination on a public campus?
lol...right. From the article:
A row of chest-high barriers splits the room into sex-segregated sections. In the smaller, enclosed area for women sits a pile of shawls and head-coverings. Literature titled "Hijaab [covering] and Modesty" was prominently placed there, instructing women on proper Islamic behavior. They should cover their faces and stay at home, it said, and their speech should not "be such that it is heard."
"Enter into Islaam completely and accept all the rulings of Islaam," the tract read in part. "It should not be that you accept what entertains your desires and leave what opposes your desires; this is from the manners of the Jews."
"[T]he Jews and the Christians" are described as "the enemies of Allaah's religion."
The document adds: "Remember that you will never succeed while you follow these people."
A poster on the room's door advertised a local lecture on "marriage from an Islamic perspective," with "useful tips for marital harmony from the Prophet's ... life." Other fliers invited students to join the Normandale Islamic Forum, or participate in Ramadan celebrations.
One thing was missing from the meditation room: evidence of any faith but Islam. No Bible, no crucifix, no Torah.
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Some "multi-faith meditation" room they got there....
I would SO go in there and start doing sit-ups or something passive-aggressive.
Someone needs to play hardball with t he ACLU. Or sue them under RICO.
Do you suppose they realize how stupid they sound, distributing this literature at their place of worship, which is specially constructed to host both sexes separately, on a coed college campus, where female students are required to sit in class with unrelated males, and communicate with unrelated male professors and administrators? It would make more sense t put a sign on the door saying "Women, go home! You don't belong here!"
Any objections if I use the room, too?
I'd like to go in there wearing an IDF shirt, packing a Jericho 941 handgun, and sing the Israeli national anthem.
“If the facility is truly for all faiths, they would allow a Christmas service this Sunday, right?”
Followed by a late Hanukkah celebration?
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