Mass. Schools recognize muslim holiday

[caseagainstfaith]

Some Massachusetts public school students have a day off this week, but it has nothing to do with power outages or snow.

The Cambridge school system is believed to be the first in Massachusetts to give all students a day off for a Muslim holiday.

Students are getting Tuesday off for Eid al-Adha, also known as the Festival of Sacrifice, the Boston Globe reports.

"We’re ecstatic about this," Atif Harden, interim executive director of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, told the newspaper. "This is the first year that it’s going to occur. This sort of recognition of our existence and the population we have, we feel very good about."

The day off was approved by the school committee last year because of the district's sizable Muslim population.

Superintendent Jeffrey Young told the newspaper that honoring the holiday is in line with the district's values of "inclusion and respect."

School committee member Marc McGovern says he got some criticism and even threats when he approved of the holiday.

source - www.foxnews.com/us/2011/11/07/massachusetts-school-district-marks-muslim-holiday/#content

Personally I don't see the problem. Since schools are public government ran and with the whole separation of church and state and all. The only reason I posted a faux noise source is a lot of the comments are as you would expect - priceless.

[Meshakhad]

I imagine that this was done as much as a matter of practicality as respecting the students. My brother's high school had major Jewish holidays off (really just Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), since like 20% of the student body and faculty were Jewish.

[Smurfette Principle]

Good for them. At last someone recognizes the appalling Christian-centrism in this country and is actually doing something about it.

[priestling]

Dude, I think this is awesome! Good for Superintendent Young!

[Her3tiK]

People are seriously losing their shit about getting a day off?

[itachirumon]

YES when its MOOSLEMS
I can't get into fundie mode over this, seriously. This is awesome, fuck the nay-sayers.

But you watch, efforts to impeach/fire/disappear this guy are going to fly off the charts - I'd love to see them try though.

FIRE HIM!
Why?
MUSLIMS!
So?
WE'RE CHRISTIAN!
So?
HEATHEN -attacks-

[trike]

It makes sense, honestly. Why have school that day when a large percentage of staff and students will be out?

The elementary school I attended never scheduled any events on Monday nights, because that's when catechism was and they knew that many students and families wouldn't be able to make it. Of course, Catholics are Christian (for purposes of saying "But most of the world is Christian!") so no fundies pitched a fit about it.

[Tiberius]

And RR's response.

Ever notice how the word "inclusion" means incorporating something anti-Christian?

Let's call the Saudi Embassy and ask whether any of the children of American oil company employees in Saudi Arabia can call off an entire Islamic school day to "include" a recognition of Easter.

Christianity is EXCLUSIVE: "No man comes to the Father but by (Jesus)". John 14:6

[N. De Plume]

Ever notice how the word "inclusion" means incorporating something anti-Christian?

Not Christian =/= Anti-Christian

Additionally: Given the overrepresentation of Christian elements in most of society, increasing inclusion is bound to mostly involve non-Christian ideology.

Let's call the Saudi Embassy and ask whether any of the children of American oil company employees in Saudi Arabia can call off an entire Islamic school day to "include" a recognition of Easter.

That’s right. Model our government on Saudi Arabia.

Christianity is EXCLUSIVE: "No man comes to the Father but by (Jesus)". John 14:6

The Government is not Christianity.

[Thejebusfire]

This is the plan: one school, one city, one state at a time. We quit having Christmas Holidays years ago: now it's Winter Break. Cannot have anything that pertains to the Christian religion, but let's go overboard to accommodate any other religion. Gee, some schools don't even want to have anything to do with Thanksgiving.
I believe Khrushchev stated that America would be destroyed from within. We're fast on our way, and with the indoctrination of our young people in government controlled schools the process is being escalated. I am disgusted with the direction our country is headed. Not going to be too bad for me(unless I have to face the government's death panel as to whether I'm worth saving), but my grandchildren are at a very impressionable age and they are being indoctrinated every day in our government run schools. Sometimes it seems there's no end to the garbage that is going on in our country today.
One of my biggest concerns is that there will be so much fraud in next year's election that our country will be completely destroyed.

Well, somebody is certainly being indoctrinated (it's not your grandchildren).

[ltfred]

Cannot have anything that pertains to the Christian religion, but let's go overboard to accommodate any other religion. Gee, some schools don't even want to have anything to do with Thanksgiving.

So very many things here. Firstly, Thanksgiving is a celebration of the death by plague of a bunch of locals. Some of them were nice and brought food to the incompetent white farmers, then the farmers went right back to killing them all and taking their land. So not a Christian celebration, just a hypocritical one.

Secondly- ONE school, ONE holiday. 'Go overboard'. ONE holiday. 'Overboard'. What's not overboard? Shooting all the Muslims?

Thirdly- nothing that pertains to the Christian religion? Except an entire system of common law, every president, 90% of congress, the police force, probably the state constitution, the national motto, all money, probably the school curriculum and about a hundred Christian holidays? You mean except that?

ONE Muslim holiday- overboard. A million Christian holidays- nothing. Maths clearly wasn't your strong subject, hey?

the government's death panel

Death panels!

[lighthorseman]

At Moe's Tavern, Homer calls in to work to tell them he won't be in tomorrow
due to a religious holiday. When asked for the name of the holiday, Homer
looks around the barroom and comes up with ``The Feast of Maximum
Occupancy.''

www.snpp.com/episodes/9F01.html

[sylvana]

The only problem I would have with this is that too many holidays might reduce the effective amount of school time available to students, but just having some days of for the Muslim holidays is fine. (it can become a bit much if you include all Christian holidays and all the Muslim ones, they don't overlap much and you end up loosing a lot of school days.)

[cestlefun17]

I do not care for school districts giving religious holidays off...be it Eid al-Adha, Yom Kippur, or Good Friday. If you believe an invisible sky-daddy is going to punish you for not doing whatever on a certain day, public policy should not have to bend towards that. The Jewish holidays are especially obnoxious...my school district would often give one day off for Yom Kippur and two days off for Rosh Hashanha, in September when people are just beginning to get back into the groove of the school year.

If 20% of the population believes that they need to skip school to do more important things like talk to invisible beings, then they can not show up to school and make up the work that they missed later. Out of my extreme generosity and compassion, I will even go so far as to allow these absences to be considered "excused" and instruct teachers not to give tests on these days.

[murdin]

"It's only OK when we do it", part eleventy billion ninety hundred and one. (the comment, not the article)

Nov 7, 2011 16:22:59 GMT -5 N. De Plume said:

Ever notice how the word "inclusion" means incorporating something anti-Christian?

Not Christian =/= Anti-Christian

Additionally: Given the overrepresentation of Christian elements in most of society, increasing inclusion is bound to mostly involve non-Christian ideology.

You didn't read the right parts of the bible, then. "Antichrist" is anyone who has been exposed to Christianity and rejected it. Since pretty much everyone in the Western world has been exposed to Christianity, all non-Christians are to be considered antichrists, and any non-Christian act is also anti-Christian.

Fundies sure know what they're talking about when they describe how culturally imperialistic Muslims are, how they force people to convert, and how they treat apostates. How anyone who received the Word of Allah (pardon my Arabic - I meant God) but denied its Truth is an inhuman beast unworthy of life. This entire idea was ripped off from Christianity.