Harvard accommates Gym Hours for Muslim Women

oftenrunning52 wrote:

Examples?

Liquor sales banned on Sundays or Sunday mornings.

Not having to pay parking meters on Sunday.

"accommates"?? NEVER talk about Harvard again.

Believing things without evidence is stupid. People with no religious beliefs should not be subject to stupidity. I do not want religion to affect my life in any way.

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Liquor sales banned on Sundays or Sunday mornings.

Not having to pay parking meters on Sunday.[/quote]

You are right, there are a lot of Blue Laws still on the books that are legacy of the Christian days. Now a lot of them are kept because most people like it that way. I think a lot of people like Sunday morning to be a time of rest, family, and leisure whether they go to church or not. If you can't figure out a way to get booze or food or whatever you need between 10:00 and 12:00 on Sunday without going to the store you are a retard.

I believe the not having to pay parking meters on sunday is more of a Union thing because the ticket takers want the day off from issuing tickets and collecting money.

Being unable to buy a car on a Sunday, when most people have time off to go and shop for a car, is asinine. There are sales staff ready to sell you almost any other consumer good on a Sunday, but somehow cars are off-limits? And you can go get loaded at a bar and then drive home, but it's such a bad idea to buy booze at a store and then drink it at home? It's an uptight legacy Christians have left. I can have "rest, family, and leisure" on any day off regardless of whether I'm allowed to buy booze or cars.

work crews wrote:

I believe the not having to pay parking meters on sunday is more of a Union thing because the ticket takers want the day off from issuing tickets and collecting money.

A few years ago NYC tried to go from 5 days to 7 days a week parking meters. Parking meters are there to assure that spaces turn over frequently, to benefit merchants whose patrons need to reach them. Most stores are open on Sundays.

The churches raised a huge stink, and Mayor Bloomberg had to back down. So now meters are in effect six days a week, except that in some heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods they're not in effect on Saturdays either.

In addition to meters in shopping districts, most of NYC has street cleaning regulations, where parking is banned on one side of the street one or two days a week, so sweepers can clean out the gutters. Jewish groups got these regulations suspended on certain holy days when they're prohibited from operating machinery. Now everyone has gotten into the act, and having alternate-side parking suspended on your day is a form of municipal recognition of your religion, whether or not your religion forbids you to drive on that day. So various Catholic saint's days, Hindu and Muslim holidays, etc., are occasions for the streets to stay nice and dirty.

I guess, I am probably just getting old. It just seems to me that having everything open all time just because you can and it is convienient doesn't seem like a good thing. People are stressed out and overworked as it is. Having one morning a week when you can take your time to stretch, go for a long run, enjoy the relatively traffic free roads without people flying around like maniacs because they are late is nice. The people in retail do not enjoy having to wake up at 7:00 every morning to man a cash register. People who own businesses like a day when they can only worry about operations for a 6 hour period instead of 12 or 14 hours. When the laws for selling liquor on sunday were repealed, all of the liquor store owners around my county were much opposed to it because they like a day off too. Mom and pops were worried about being put under by the larger stores which were already opened so they opened.

You are right though, if you want to open, and people want to buy, it should not be a religious basis for it. Most people can not have rest and leisure and family time any day so you are very lucky.

Years of accomodating Christians and the best you guys can come up with is free parking on Sunday (how is that bad?) and no car or booze sales on Sunday? While I will grant that these laws exist because of Christianity, they were enacted when a majority of the area governed by said rule was Christian (and likely they still exist because the area is still Christian). The analogy with Muslims at Harvard is not appropriate because Muslims do not make up a majority of the students at Harvard. I have no problem with a county in the South prohibitting the sale of alcohol on Sunday when a majority of the county would like that. If you live there and don't like it, either move or get the law changed. What is annoying is when a public institution starts to grant special priviledges to a minority of the population under the excuse of diversity or sensitivity. I would love it if between 3-5 in the afternoon, slow walkers and runners could not use the track so my training partner and I could use it unimpeded.

There's no God. Seriously, I am not joking, there isn't. There's no argument or evidence that points to one. Let's just put all this nonsense behind us and get on with our lives. Enough already.

Disciple of Brian wrote:

Believing things without evidence is stupid. People with no religious beliefs should not be subject to stupidity. I do not want religion to affect my life in any way.

Religious beliefs should simply be treated like other beliefs and be according respect on their merits, not some sort of PC love-fest of exaggerated respect. Religions should not effect our legislation of public life in anyway. Folks can believe whatever the hell they like in private. But if your rational for a law or regulation is "God says so" you should be regarded with the same "respect" as someone who says "the voices in my radio says so". Religion has gotten special treatment for so long, they don't know what equal rights, rather than special rights, look like.

It isn't that believing things without evidence is stupid - it is that thinking such beliefs should be actionable in the public arena rather than a provisional belief that you recognize doesn't hold enough water to demand special treatment.

To me it would depend on how it came about.

I have no problem with a campus organization requesting to reserve an out of the way gym at certain times so that it can have a special activity time for its members. And I have no problem with a university deciding to grant that request. It doesn't matter which group and it doesn't matter for what purpose, so long as it's an appropriate activity to do in a gym. Probably a lot of other groups reserve certain rooms and sections of the campus for other activities, on a first come, first serve basis.

The problem is when it becomes a matter of entitlement- we MUST have a separate gym with special workout times because we're Muslim.

The difference is that the First Amendment prohibits government establishment of religion, and also prohibits the government restricting the free practice thereof. So a private institution like Harvard doing this is fine, but a county doing something on a similar basis would not be fine.

[quote]oftenrunning52 wrote:

I have no problem with a county in the South prohibitting the sale of alcohol on Sunday when a majority of the county would like that. If you live there and don't like it, either move or get the law changed. What is annoying is when a public institution starts to grant special priviledges to a minority of the population under the excuse of diversity or sensitivity.quote]

oftenrunning52 wrote:

I have no problem with a county in the South prohibitting the sale of alcohol on Sunday when a majority of the county would like that. If you live there and don't like it, either move or get the law changed. What is annoying is when a public institution starts to grant special priviledges to a minority of the population under the excuse of diversity or sensitivity.quote]

The Constitution overrides the tyranny of the majority in Constitutional questions. Local governments are not allowed to infringe on constitutional rights. What else can the majority in a county decide they want to do? Read the Federalist papers lately? Are we a country or a collection of localities? Isn't your rationale above the exact rationale used to deprive black folks the right to vote? I would say that if the liberal denizens of Berkeley tried to outlaw religious expressions or meetings, the religous folks there would have every right to complain, and I would not suggest that they should move or comply.

This rationale did deny rights to groups until the Constitution was enforced, which it clearly wasn't being at the time. At what point though does it become the tyranny of the minority? One person cries out against the Christmas Tree in the public square and suddenly the local government is forced to take it down. How is that establishing religion? The writers and framers of the Constitution held church services on Sunday in the Capitol. This act was neer considered unConstitutional.

If you live nearby, why not get access to the weightroom in Pforzheimer House or one of the other Quad dorms?

harvard guy wrote:

real changes.

in any case, the only reason I care is I live across the street from the qrac, and am annoyed I can't lift in the mornings any more

let the market decide when things should be open...go to europe (well except england), especially parts of germany, france, switzerlandstuff is never open it is a pain in the assit isn't like there isn't demand either, some train stations have markets that are allowed to be open on sundays - guess what, on sundays it gets so crowded you can't move because everyone wants to shopi thought that was ridiculous

Disciple of Brian wrote:

Believing things without evidence is stupid. People with no religious beliefs should not be subject to stupidity. I do not want religion to affect my life in any way.

It is not stupid, it is faith. Faith is important to people, I guess just not you. I assume you trust in science. That's fine, I do too. Faith is separate from science, therefor it is held to a different standard. Think of it like this: You cannot see God, but that does not prove he is not there. It only proves you cannot see him. In my opinion we are finite minds trying to comprehend the infinite.

FWIW - I have no problem with Harvard and their decision. They are a private entity and I do not want to restrict their rights, as I do not want to restrict mine. But if Harvard were a public institution, this would alarm me greatly.

Whatever happened to the rage over "seperate but equal?" I fail to see how this is different than white people barring black people from certain facilities because the black folks are "unclean" or they don't like it. White racists in the South always used to claim that black people were somehow an affront to their "Christian" dignity. I don't see how this is any different.

Let the market of willing buyers and sellers determine that, not some archaic ode to churchgoers.

That's their choice to work jobs that require that of them. I have TWO mornings each week I can do that, anyone else could choose the same.

Then they can choose a different line of work or business. They aren't enslaved to that industry or workplace.

Owners don't HAVE to work any days of the week at all. If they love their work then what's the big deal? If they don't love their work then they chose wrong.

Where is the basis in fact for this statement? Last I checked there were still 24 hours in every single weekday.