Posted on 07/19/2005 1:03:41 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
It's Saturday evening, the end of a hot day, and a group of women and children have gathered at North Seattle's Meadowbrook Pool for their monthly swim.
Most of the pool staff has left, except for two female lifeguards, who on this day will be on duty for the next two hours.
The women and children — all Muslims — have been swimming in private once a month at Meadowbrook as part of a program organized by the North Seattle Family Center.
Because Islam requires Muslim women to fully cover themselves in public, swimming in pools or the ocean is largely off-limits for many.
But across the Puget Sound area, that's starting to change as public and private pools at times are sending home their male staff members, covering up their windows and allowing women of faith to swim alone and in private...
Access to these pools is not free; the groups, like all others that use these facilities, pay a rental fee....
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Some years ago we were stationed in Jeddah. We had almost weekly convoys leaving from the embassy to spots on the Red Sea two hours either north or south. The further away from Jeddah, the fewer prying Arab eyes. One particular week, we had set up our tents and grills (and hiding the "tea"). A pickup full of Saudis pulled up about 100 yards from our group. The men waded into the shallows wearing their "thobes," long Arab gowns. The women followed them by about ten paces, and they were fully covered in the black abaya. It was usually in excess of 100 degrees there, with a humidity to match. Other Saudis would try to get near our encampments to gawk at our ladies in their bathing suits.
>>It's muslims trying to islamify america.
They know all the hot buttons and words to get what they want.
No one seems to see that by allowing an OPPRESSIVE group to rent a place wherein their oppression of women can more easily take place we are ENABLING that group. We are CONTRIBUTING to the oppression of Muslim women, honor killings and all of their other 7th century rules about female property.
It's like renting a hall to group of wife beaters. Would we consider that ok as long as they paid a fee? Can we imagine a woman calling a meeting hall...? " Hello, my best friend and I are forbidden by our husbands to talk to strangers or be seen by them, but they said we can leave the house if we can rent your facility and you black out the windows and not let any other humans in. Please rent us the place, we're prisoners otherwise."
--and the reply...? " Sure, we'll even barricade the place if your husbands would like. " $375 for the day."
- or would it be more like..." You're being held prisoner by your husbands? That's illegal, lady. I'll call the police for you- where are you?"
It's that these Muslim women don't DARE swim anywhere else. And here we are, for the price of rental, giving the cult that is oppressing them an easy way to do it.
Maybe if we didn't ENABLE the backwardness of Islam in this country, the 'moderate Muslims' here would feel more secure about finally saying 'NO' and breaking those bonds.
The funny thing is, women agitated for coed gyms; having got them, they then wanted the comfort of singlesex traditional gyms. Go figger.
I used to work out an ex-con gym. It was really filthy and dirty but the men were serious about working out and didn't bother me at all. I loved it. I won't work out at a Bally's or a Sport Club,etc. not even a yoga studio because as lots of other women are, I'm self conscious :o)
"I don't think muslimes ought to be living in this Country while their minds remain in the third world..oh, and there is that wanting to kill us thing too."
LOL ..Ditto that! Besides I don't think I'll ever be keen on a headless goat being dragged across my property. Call me silly but it has something to do with the NEW MILLENIUM !!!
HELLO !!! Is anybody out there?!! Am I on Mars?!
No it isn't. The pools are allowing anyone who pleases to use their facilities. What they aren't allowing is anyone to use their facilities for religious purposes. The Muslim women are using the facilities to swim, not to practice their religion. The Christian group was using a pool to practice their religion. Whether you agree with the separation of church and state or not, I don't think you can say there's a double standard here.
well, and i thought i read that it originated with the taliban only a few decades ago. hideous.
"Last time I checked, Muslim ladies in Victorian swimwsuits weren't blowing up Seattle swimming pools."
Yet.
"Does the Judeo-Christian ethic and/or Western Culture and/or the American system of justice impute guilt on a group basis, across the board and without reference to individual responsibility?
Or is it just you?"
In a time of war it does. If you call it a war on terror, then you can avoid who the real enemy. But, terror is an emotion, that makes as much sense as a war on sadness. islam is the enemy. And we are at war. So, in the war on islam, we impute the whole group. Just as we did Germans and Japanese in World War II.
Of course. As for being beaten, that's assault and battery, and the last time I checked, it's still against the law.
For the record, I'm for the swift, certain, and severe punishment of any man who beats any woman (or vice-versa, I suppose I have to add.)(Sheesh.)
But why bring in the issue of beating when what we're talking about is swimming? Does every discussion on every topic --- even ladies' swim suits ---have to turn into a conflagration..?
"I guess if they pay to rent the space they can do as they want"
Okay now replace "they" with kiddie pornographers and pedophiles using the pool to film child porn. Or how about people who want to rent the pool with their beastiality pets swimming in the pool too. What ever happened to common sense and boundaries. The loons are running amuck in Amuckerica
Where is the difference in PRACTICING religion and OBEYING it?
They rented that pool because they had to follow the strict laws of their death-cult. They had to obey the rules of their lords and masters. And who paid for it? The HUSBANDS! The abusers.
If renting space to an abusive 'religion' that helps enforce their brutal rules for their women isn't participating in that religion I don't know what is.
oh, REALLY? do you remember the school of girls who died when the school caught fire? the police wouldn't let them out into the street, even as the building came down around them because they weren't wearing their burkas.
what would YOU do if you were in danger of having feet cut off, scarred horribly or burned alive if all you did was try to drive or let some jerk see your face?
it might make you comfortable to think that all muslim women accept it willingly, as many do, but the risks and dangers are much greater for a female in this culture to break free. they are virtual slaves, with no rights other than to be owned. having never tasted freedom, how can one be so callous as to say all participate voluntarily?
witness iran, where the young people and women are willing to risk it all, just for a whiff of what we have in this great country.
obviously, i disagree with you.
" If Muslims want to observe their social laws, they need to do it in their own private swimming pools. "
How bout back to their own sand box in the middle east. America was fine with out all these "restrictions" being put on born and bred Americans in our own country made up of all other races who btw don't make waves with special treatment for every little burp and blip.
The way it was explained to me (and this was verbal by someone who teaches the Guedra etc of the region) was that they are extremely lax Muslims and what they DO do it is done more to appease the hardliners when they are around them.
And they have more way more pagan practices that true muslim. (ie, the Guedra trance).
Granted, this was verbal and I'm running for my notes now ;)
Nobody is telling Christian swimmers that they shalt not honor their mothers and fathers. It is impossible for a believer not to obey the tenets of his or her religion at all times, but that's different from practices religious services or rituals on gov't property.
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