Truemors
Opinion
Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor
The Tofu Wheat Grass set at UBC for a better word have lost their friggin mind. Using public funds for renovating 391 public washrooms for what seems to be a washroom dedicated to every Tom, Sheila and "Sexually Ambiguous Pats" seems to be Political Correctness gone insane.
Unfairly, the losers in all this will be the Muslims who it seems are now grouped by the media with the rest of these PC Wackos getting unwanted attention in what seems was simple request for a few simple foot baths on campus period.
My FInal Thought
They say University students are our leaders of tomorrow, I can just imagine these idiots at PC UBC with access to Public Money if they ever get into political office. It seems UBC Students Environmental Stewardship goes into the Sh*tter when "Hypocrisy Rules on Campus".
url="http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Columnists/Cockburn_Lyn/2007/08/16/4422123.html"]From Dearborn, Mich., to Vancouver, foot baths are starting to appear on university campuses.
No, it's not because September's crop of students are expected to display especially dirty feet.
Yes, it's because the baths will permit Muslim students to bathe their feet five times a day as required before they pray.
Over the past few years, more than a dozen U.S. campuses and several in Canada have quietly installed these simple little areas in a corner of some of their washrooms. Without any fuss.
But now at the University of Michigan, there is fuss as it plans to renovate existing bathrooms as well as create new ones.
And at UBC, there is a lot of publicity about campus plans to renovate 391 single-stall units to accommodate nursing moms who need a private space, Muslims who require washing facilities to perform religious rituals and transgendered individuals who may feel uncomfortable in traditional bathrooms. These neutral loos will sport signs indicating toilet rather than gender.
The university is also planning to install custom-constructed ablution (or wudu) facilities for Muslim students.
It seems the publicity around what some are calling "porta mosques" got started when a Muslim student at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College slipped and injured herself as she was bathing her feet in a sink.
Soon word got out that the college was considering installing a foot bath. A fuss ensued and quickly turned to furor over the fact that a coffee cart had been banned from playing carols last Christmas.
"Double standard," said some, insisting that the college was displaying an unseemly accommodating attitude towards Islam while discriminating against Christianity.
Nonsense. Those coffee carts had no business being out in the open annoying other students. Carts, people or trained seals playing Christmas music ought to be left alone as long as they do it in private ... say in an enclosed foot bath.
Meanwhile, back in Dearborn, Debbie Schlussel, a conservative lawyer and blogger in Southfield, Mich., posted, "Forget about the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state ... at least when it comes to mosque and state."
Forget it altogether, Debbie, foot baths do not proselytize, they do not call down hellfire and damnation, they do not instill guilt and best of all, they do not sing.
The university foot baths are as far as I can tell, open to everyone, not just Muslims. In other words, they are ecumenical foot baths.And dare I say, Jesus would have liked that fact since He seemed to enjoy bathing feet, feeling no doubt that it is an act of humility.
And those of us who were brought up as Christians would do well to be satisfied that we own most of the holidays in Canada. We do not recognize the High Holy Days of Judaism, we do not celebrate the religious holidays of our Buddhist friends, our Sikh or Hindu populations.
Surely it ought to be considered merely a gesture of goodwill and safety to provide a little corner of our universities so that Muslim students can wash their feet before praying.
"It is a very small and minor requirement," said Hesham Alsalman, with UBC's Muslim Student Association.
Yes, it is. So small in fact, that hopefully UBC can get it done without anyone making a fuss or creating a furor.
In fact, if there's anything to get irate about here, it is the suggestion that nursing mothers ought to feed their babies in bathrooms. Really dumb. [/q]
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