Posted on 05/02/2007 2:04:12 AM PDT by Man50D
Kansas City International Airport officials have acknowledged installing foot-washing benches in a restroom at the airport, but deny they're intended for Muslim cab drivers.
WND over the weekend reported that KCI Airport recently constructed four foot-washing benches to accommodate a growing number of Muslim drivers who requested the facilities to prepare for daily Islamic prayer.
"Recently, a small expansion was made to the building," said Kansas City Aviation Department spokesman Joe McBride in a statement to WND. "Included were wash areas used for any wash purpose by any of the users, including filling car wash buckets."
He insisted the wash benches were not "built for the exclusive use of any ethnic group or culture."
However, the department director in an earlier statement to WND appeared to contradict that claim.
"The majority of our drivers are Muslim, so preventing them from praying at all was not an option, especially in our public terminal restrooms," said Mark VanLoh, director of the Kansas City Aviation Department. "This was the best solution, and those facilities were added without public money."
He added that cab drivers paid for construction through a one-dollar per-trip fee.
In October 2005, the KCI Airport Police first solicited advice from other law enforcement regarding "wash bench facilities for those of Islamic faith," according to internal e-mails obtained by WND. In one e-mail sent to members of the Airport Law Enforcement Agencies Network, or ALEAN, KCI Airport Police brass asked, "If you do have such an area, do you refer to this location as a place for those of Islamic faith to [go to] prepare themselves for worship?"
The KCI Airport Police are responsible for the taxicab drivers and the building they use at the airport to wait on fares. The building contains the restroom with the four new foot-washing benches.
One airport official told WND the police are concerned about "catering" to Islamic rituals at the airport, particularly after the 9/11 hijackings and the more recent transatlantic sky terror plot. Airports have been operating under heightened security. The KCI Airport Police force, in fact, was beefed up after 9/11 to help prevent Islamic terrorism.
Islamic suicide attackers go through a ritual called ablution, or bodily cleansing, before carrying out their martyrdom operations. The 9/11 hijackers performed this ritual before entering airport terminals.
McBride suggested to a Kansas City TV news station, KMBC-TV (Channel 9), that it was, as the station put it, a "myth" that the airport installed foot-washing benches for Islamic taxi drivers. "It's a case of mistaken information on the Internet," McBride is quoted as saying.
However, a Savage radio listener yesterday offered photos he says he took of the benches on Monday in the taxicab facility restroom located in the middle of the airport under the control tower.
The photos clearly show four individual wash benches across from knee-high faucets and hand rails. Drains are visible in the floor.
In one corner of the room stands a rolled-up prayer rug. Smaller rugs can be seen lying on a cart behind it.
"There are foot bathes [sic] in the cabbie way station," asserted Phillip Morgan of Kansas City in an e-mail. Morgan went on to say he planned to lodge a complaint with the mayor's office.
Some 250 taxicab drivers operate at KCI Airport in Missouri, one of the largest airports in the U.S., linking some 10 million passengers between mid-America and other U.S. cities. One internal KCI Airport Police email said "approximately 70% of the drivers are [of] Middle Eastern heritage and practice the Islamic faith."
Muslims are required to wash their feet and other body parts before praying to Allah five times a day. They often complain that public restroom sinks do not accommodate their needs. Floor-level basins and benches make it easier for them to perform their foot-washing ritual.
Muslim taxi drivers at KCI Airport pooh-poohed concerns about the wash benches, arguing they are not just for their use.
"The guys [sic] making a big issue out of it it's not just for Muslims," said taxi driver Shareif El-Mahdi in an interview with KMBC-TV.
Other major airports have dealt with increased demands from Muslim cab drivers. Cabbies at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, for instance, recently caused a stir when they refused to carry passengers possessing alcoholic beverages or accompanied by seeing-eye dogs. Alcohol is forbidden in Islam, and dogs are considered unclean.
Amidst the hustle and bustle of the world’s busiest airports are places where Muslims on the go can fulfill their daily prayer obligations, Christians can read the Bible, and travelers in trouble can find a compassionate ear. Airport chapels have been around since the first one in 1950, and now there are 150 around the world.
The first airport chapel was built in 1950 at Bostons Logan International Airport to provide a place where airport employees and travelers could fulfill their worship obligations. Many Bostonians at the time were Catholic and needed to go to mass every day, no matter where they traveled. Shortly afterward, a second was established in New York at Idlewild Airport, now called John. F. Kennedy International Airport.
Today 150 airport chapels around the world provide a place for meditation, prayer and counseling for travelers and airport employees. In Chicago, an estimated 1,000 people a week visit the chapel at OHare Airport. In New York, JFK’s Catholic chapel receives 200 people a day. Fr. James Devine is the Catholic Chaplain at New Yorks JFK Airport, “Our Lady of the Skies.” Father Devine counseled the families of the victims of TWA Flight 800, which crashed over Long Island in 1996.
Most interfaith airport chapels consist of a small room with chairs, some with kneelers. There is a table in the front of the room, which often serves as an altar. There are Bibles, the Koran, and other prayer books available for visitors. There are also prayer mats and normally a guest book and a place where visitors can write their prayer requests.
Airport chapels offer opportunities for denominational and non-denominational services. Airport chaplains provide counseling and referrals and are often utilized in times of crises. They are a spiritual presence to the traveling public and they encounter everything from someone running away from home to the aftermath of plane crashes and crises in the aviation industry. Airport chapels are funded by donations from nonprofit organizations, visitors and local churches.
At most of the world’s airport chapels, it is not uncommon to see a Bible next to the Koran, or to see a Muslim kneeling down beside a Christian. At busy JFK, there are four chapels: One Catholic, one Jewish, one Protestant and the other is multi-faith, though Muslims often pray there. The chapels are located in the international terminal four, a hub of cultural and religious diversity.
New security measures put in place after 9/11 sometimes challenge the use of the chapels. There is normally one chapel per airport and its location varies. Chapels outside of security make it difficult for travelers, as most passengers want to get through security as quickly as possible. On the other hand, a chapel that is past security is accessible to ticketed travelers in that particular terminal only.
CONTACTS
Fr. James Devine: Catholic Chaplain
Our Lady of the Skies Chapel
JFK International Airport
Phone: (718) 656-5348
I am afraid that, as much as I hate islam, I must agree with mewzilla, I hate the denial worse than the foo-rinals. Americans(and I suppose some of the muzzie cabbies are Americans)are assured equal treatment under the law no matter how misguided and lost they are.
If I were a Missouri resident I’d alert the fishing community that the airport has installed fish gutting benches and wash basins.
I always flew out of KCI. But in the future, I guess I’ll be going to Oklahoma City since its the same distance. Screw KCI for kowtowing to the enemy.
Re:63....so much for my knowlege of the chapels in airports.....
"THIS JUST IN -
Two professors from MIT have actually time-travelled back to the 911 Atrocities, to the doomed World Trade center
and had an actual conversation with several Americans who were about to jump off of the World Trade Tower.
The Americans clinging to the burning building had even more shock and horror
when they learned that America in 2007 be much more 'sensitive', and 'caring', and 'reaching out' to Islamic terrorists.
They clung for their lives to the building but where shaken and horrified to learn that America in 2007 would still have no border wall keeping the terrorists out,
and that because of America's sensitivity to Islamic terrorists, America's Postal service would even issue a postal stamp saying 'DIE" to honor the terrorists,
and they cried even more when they learned that the terrorists would receive millions of dollars and weapons from the State Department,
and that because of America's sensitivity for Islamic terrorists, America would begin making foot washing sites
at airport (yes, airports) so that terrorists could conveniently keep their feet pure prior to murdering more Americans.
Asking for their comment, the time-traveling professors were shocked when the victims of the 911 Atrocity, screaming, shook their heads
in shock, screamed at the stupidity of future America, and then jumped to avoid the encompassing fire, the falling debris gasoline,
and the cavitating floors burning beneath them."
It really pisses me off that before 9/11 nobody in this country gave a rat’s ass about conforming our culture to accomodate the Muslims’ peculiarities or sensibilites.
But ever since 9/11 every public official and major corporation have been bending over and falling all over themselves to accomdate the Muslims in regard to their peculiar practices.
In that sense 9/11 was a major victory for Islam. Islam has now become the official religion of the United States.
You can freely discriminate against Christians and Jews, but don’t you dare refuse to bow to the Muslim’s demands for prayer time or washbasins or bell ringing for calls to prayer or anything else they want. To refuse to bow to Islam is to be an official bigot.
They wash their IED trigger finger.
I think you are right. We are giving into the Muslims more & more. While it may seem to be little things we should not give into any of their demands. Give an inch & they will be taking miles.
“Airport admits installing foot-washing benches”
Is there someone who thought they just appeared out of thin air?
ROFL !!!
I did a double take on that one, too!
The next time I go through Kansas City, I know just where to take my pet Vietnamese pot-bellied pig for a bath.
Hey, now...pig have standards too, ya know....:)
Isn’t it interesting that moslems now make demands and have them met here? And in Kansas City! It is not like we cannot get people to drive cabs. How many times to we have to suggest that moslems, one and all, be escorted out of the country and back to their former countries - you know, the paradises where they were all either doctors, engineers, or royalty. And, God only knows, they all had houses full of servants. So how’s come they are here driving cabs? Inquiring minds want to know.
OK. I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THEM DOING THAT. These people are here for the expressed purpose of killing all of us. What is this!!
FR * bookmark
It makes sense once you look at the layout of KCI. There are three terminals in a clover leaf pattern, with the control tower, and maintenace facilites in the center. Gives easy access to all three terminals
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.