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New York schools may close for Muslim holidays

Hatuey said:
New York schools may close for Muslim holidays





This is the problem with mixing religion and state. If you want your kids celebrating your religious holidays, they can go to religious charter schools - or better yet - don't bring them to school that day. You don't have a right to make everyone else observe your religious events.
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Being retired military, my kids use to have to go to school on Veterans Day and Memorial Day. I pulled them out. I agree, if school is in session on any given religious holiday regardless of religion, pull your kid out for a day.
 
Hatuey said:
As labor day doesn't give one religious belief preference over another with publicly funded institutions, your argument is silly. Your argument is apples and oranges.
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How exactly is recognizing more religions as equally valid in the public eye an instance of government favoring one religion over others? This is an example of Islam being put on equal footing with Christianity and in some places Judaism (ps, growing up and having to miss school on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashannah SUCKED).

This is two extra days off, and an increasing segment of the population won't be there anyway. This is protecting those kids by not making them miss an important day of school and missing material that they need to learn, in order to adhere to their religion. This is exactly what religious freedom is supposed to be doing. You have it entirely backwards.
 
Hatuey said:
Lol, if you think your taxes go to pay for their heating bill - you don't actually pay taxes. Please stop it. You're showing everybody here your real age. Does your father pay taxes? Because then, I'd like for him to get on this website right now and explain to you that the school district's biggest expense is not their utilities.
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if taxes don't pay the heating bill what does?
you still have yet to explain what does it cost you other then to fuel your hate
 
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Cyrylek said:
Irrelevant. No funds are being expended toward any religious goals in this case.





Parents are allowed that option on any day. They can homeschool, if they want. Why do Muslim students should miss an exam or a school play that may fall on one of these days?
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I have never seen a public school close on Jewish holidays.

When I was in school, I stayed home on those days and brought a note the next day just like everybody else did.

Why would the Christians get a Jewish Holiday off and why would anybody but a Muslim get their days off.

Why are Muslims so special as to close the whole school and put every other student behind for that day?
 
trfjr said:
if taxes don't pay the heating bill what does?
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... You obviously missed the point of my statement. 1-2 days off will mean absolutely nothing in terms of taxes. School years have been getting progressively shorter while at the same time taxes to pay for them have been on the increase. Again, a school being shut down for 1-2 days means NOTHING in terms of the taxes which are collected in order to fund them.
 
Hatuey said:
By closing down the schools over religious events you are in fact forcing others to register it as being significant. Not only that, you're stopping others from performing their labor due to the religious beliefs of others.
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Religious holidays are significant. There is no church and state issue, but the schools trying to work with their customers. They have alot of flexability in being able to move the schedule around and this is an easy thing to do that accommodates a growing segment of those who attend. I can't see where it would be a big deal. The school is not supporting the holiday, not sponsoring or even commenting on the religion itself.
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
Try delivering that message to the (I'm sure very large) majority of parents with respect to Christmas. :)
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That would be interesting.

We still have a contingent of CHristians that consider saying "Happy Holidays" somehow is some kind of a threat against Christianity. :lol:
 
Hatuey said:
New York schools may close for Muslim holidays

This is the problem with mixing religion and state. If you want your kids celebrating your religious holidays, they can go to religious charter schools - or better yet - don't bring them to school that day. You don't have a right to make everyone else observe your religious events.
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The two people advocating this aren't even Muslim so how are they "making everyone else observe [their] religious events?

Also, getting the day off for a religious holiday is not the same thing as observing a religious holiday. In college, we got some Jewish holidays off and, as a non-Jew, I didn't observe anything. I enjoyed my day off.
 
Hatuey said:
... You obviously missed the point of my statement. 1-2 days off will mean absolutely nothing in terms of taxes. School years have been getting progressively shorter while at the same time taxes to pay for them have been on the increase. Again, a school being shut down for 1-2 days means NOTHING in terms of the taxes which are collected in order to fund them.
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so what does it cost you? what skin do you have in the game? why do you even give a dam?
just the whinings of a brat not wanting someone to have something you don't believe in
 
Hatuey said:
To the religious.
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No. By that argument, then religions are only significant to the religious. Just because you or I do not follow a particular religion does not mean that what they do is not significant. Easter for example is a significant holiday celebrating the key event that a large portion of the world believes happens, even if you believe as I do that it is really just a hilarious mashup of rabbits, chickens and a zombie. Just because it is not my holiday does not make it an insignificant one.
 
Mason66 said:
I have never seen a public school close on Jewish holidays.
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In New York, they close on Rosh Hashanah.

Mason66 said:
Why are Muslims so special as to close the whole school and put every other student behind for that day?
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They are not: it is simply sensible and practical to close schools on Muslim holidays in the areas where Muslims are a significant part of the population. In Dearborn, MI schools are closed on Eid-al-Fitr, and it doesn't seem to bother anyone.
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
Try delivering that message to the (I'm sure very large) majority of parents with respect to Christmas. :)
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Actually, most school districts have their asses covered with that one, they don't have a Christmas holiday off. In fact, they have a winter break and Christmas just happens to fall there, but so does New Years Eve so it isn't a Christmas holiday, it's a Winter Break. I notice that Easter used to be within the Spring Break but that doesn't seem to be always true anymore, and no other day seems to be off if Easter doesn't fall within the Spring Break.
 
Hatuey said:
Spare me your fallacious arguments. My argument is that people can have their holidays - publicly funded schools shouldn't be closed in order to observe those holidays. Which is by far the most Libertarian argument on this thread.
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True enough.

From a practical POV, having usual days off falling on major religious holidays (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Scientology)will be less disruptive to a school. For awhile, we had a modified year round schedule (start a little early, have well spaced weeklong breaks) seemed to accommodate multiple religious holidays - without intending to.
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
Sentiments like that, delivered even in jest, are why I call Muslims the new niggers.
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I know you did not initiate this derailment but in support of your point, isn't lumping all Muslims in with a group of extremists like assuming all Christians are members of Westboro?
 
Cyrylek said:
In New York, they close on Rosh Hashanah.



They are not: it is simply sensible and practical to close schools on Muslim holidays in the areas where Muslims are a significant part of the population. In Dearborn, MI schools are closed on Eid-al-Fitr, and it doesn't seem to bother anyone.
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In some ways it's probably helpful to parents who have to pay for daycare. School years are a specific number of days that have a set # of hours or more, so by having more holidays spread out, it shortens the summer break and helps parents spread out the cost of day care to other months when they may be more flush.
 
Hatuey said:
To the religious.
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No, to society. Religious holidays may only have RELIGIOUS significance to the religious, but they have social significance, academic significance, historical significance and many other types of significance to the rest of society as well. I highly doubt any non-Christian would say that absolutely that Christmas is insignificant because that would be a highly ignorant statement. The same is true for Jewish, Muslim and other holidays, particularly where the religious population in question is noticeable.
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
Sentiments like that, delivered even in jest, are why I call Muslims the new niggers.
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I totally see your point. I think though truly it is expanded to anyone obviously Middle Eastern regardless of religion. I don't think it will ever be as bad since more folks are more vocal, like yourself, than they were for blacks back in the day.
 
Your the reason people send their kids to private schools. When the liberals are done Christmas won't even be a holiday anymore. sad, really. but dogs bark, fish swim, and libs....cancel christmas
 
JoeTrumps said:
Your the reason people send their kids to private schools. When the liberals are done Christmas won't even be a holiday anymore. sad, really. but dogs bark, fish swim, and libs....cancel christmas
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Obama: 'Help Us Destroy Jesus And Start A New Age Of Liberal Darkness' | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

http://topekasnews.com/obama-wants-to-destroy-jesus-and-start-a-new-liberal-age-of-darkness/

Exactly 666 Christians are missing in Egypt and it is from their blood that Obama and his colleagues drank a ‘red liquid’ from a cup, making Satanic vows for a dark new orders of atheism and even scarier, communism
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.

:lamo
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Religious holidays may only have RELIGIOUS significance to the religious, but they have social significance, academic significance, historical significance and many other types of significance to the rest of society as well.
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Exactly. I am an atheist, but I sincerely do not understand the drive to expel the joy of Christmas (for example) from our public life. Generations of people grew up with good memories and good habits (like, you know, charitable giving or taking time to reflect on your life) centered around that special time of year.

What humorless moron would want to flush all that down the toilet, just to feel bloody righteous, on some narrow ideological point?
 
ThePlayDrive said:
No, to society.
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Nope, to the religious. More specifically to the religious in power - which is why there is a selective remembrance of religious events. We don't stop schools for the faiths of every religious movement. We stop it for those which are decreed to be important to some religious. And yet if we were to go by your incredibly low standards of what is and isn't significant, we could find an excuse to basically have the entire year off due to what was it? The "cultural, social and academic" significant of every event which fits your description.
 
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