I think the distinction is very real.
The pool rental is subsidized. Why is the City of Seattle using tax dollars to subsidize Muslim culture which is antithetical to this countries values and to its own policy of anti-descrimination based on sex?
Why is it spending tax dollars on a religious observance?
As to their attire, I got it from the article as posted in #347. Since the article was supportive of the Muslim swim, I have no reason to doubt the reporting.
Further others on this thread have seen Muslim women swimming in full Burka gear.
Last week my church (non-denominational Christian) held a fellowship meeting at a county park. We met in a pinic pavillion that is certainly subsidized by tax dollars. In addition to eating and playing bocci, we also held a prayer service (religiuos observance). Was it wrong for a tax dollar subsidized facility to have been made available to us for our use?
If a mosque had made similar arrangements with the park to use those same facilities for similar purposes, would it have been right to deny the use of this tax dollar subsidized facility to them?
Pardon me for resorting to common sense to interpret the intent of masking the windows on the indoor pool with brown paper. By masking the windows, the women could then relax from the requirement to wear the burkas required to preserve public modesty dictates. Post #388 clearly supports that conclusion:
So I stand by my assertion - the women that swam in the pool behind the masked windows didn't have to wear the multiple layers of clothing to swim. Why mask the windows if they were going to wear burkas? As I said before. I'm sure they wore modest swimming attire though - and who cares.