@Bay - white men are privileged. For example, how many of the Fortune 500 CEOs aren’t (straight) white men?
I think it’s fine to criticize colleges that have policies with which we disagree. I get a little more uncomfortable, however, when people start talking about taking steps to sanction them, such as by trying to prevent their students from getting federal loans. I think this is too much of a drag on academic freedom. I guess I would accept such sanctions for some really egregious policies–but I find the line hard to draw.
SomeOldGuy - for clarity sake, was the modest positive step of accommodation broadcasting the muslim call to prayer every Friday afternoon from the campus prayer chapel?
I wasn’t arguing whether or not they are privileged. I was intending to point out that many people in this country feel it is okay to publicly criticize those they view as “privileged” in ways they wouldn’t dare criticize other groups.
@LOUKYDAD: Yes. Rather than repeat myself, I will just link to [THIS COMMENT](Duke to begin weekly prayer broadcasts - #245 by SomeOldGuy - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums).
" I get a little more uncomfortable, however, when people start talking about taking steps to sanction them, such as by trying to prevent their students from getting federal loans. I think this is too much of a drag on academic freedom."
I think the federal government should defer to the accreditation groups, and the accreditation groups need to have more teeth. At a minimum, degrees in or requiring the study of biology and geology shouldn’t be accredited at schools that only teach young-Earth creationist perspectives. That’s literature and philosophy, not biology or geology.
Is there evidence that intelligent-design-educated doctors/health professionals/researchers, etc are incompetent in their profession? I’m not religious, so I don’t have a stake in this, but I don’t understand how whether one knows about the Big Bang or not makes them useless in every other area of science. Perhaps someone can explain.
LasMa - we have this little silly song at my house that we sing to our two year old. “If it (think any species of animal) doesn’t have a tail, it’s not a monkey, even if it has a monkey kind of shape. If it doesn’t have tail it’s not a monkey, it’s not a monkey it’s an ape.”
It is just a cute little song for a child that allows us to laugh at a logical fallacy. Yes monkeys have tails. Yes apes do not. But every animal with a tail is not a monkey. Every animal without a tail is not an ape.
I can still remember when my oldest was around three and he understood the mistake in logic for the first time.
I wonder if you can spot it in your assertion regarding white privilege.
The question with accreditation isn’t whether the person will later be useless (or excellent) at their profession. The question is whether they’ve been properly educated in the named field.
You might have terrific nurses if you only required them to pass the licensing exam, not go to school and get a degree. I don’t know. That’s how credentialing lawyers used to work. But if we’re going to require accredited courses in A, B, and C in order to get degree X, then they ought to be real courses.
Are there consequences to students who have gay sex at BYU? Notre Dame? Yeshiva U? If so, what are the consequences?
This is a fairy tale. Many of the founders of the American colonies were extremely religious and wholly intolerant of those who worshipped God differently. Massachusetts was founded as a religious colony. Maybe you missed the part about the Puritans in your US history class? Maryland was a Catholic colony. It did allow C of E folks to worship, but that was imposed on it when the founders were granted a royal charter. Do not eat before you read what the law provided as punishment for any Quaker or Jew found in Maryland. New York was relatively tolerant, thanks to the Dutch. However, the law provided that any Catholic priest found in NY could be executed.
As far as I know, Rhode Island was the ONLY colony that offered complete religious freedom. The folks from Massachusetts did not take kindly to that by the way. In fact, they sent soldiers into Rhode Island to arrest people who had fled Massachusetts in religious disputes. They dragged them back to Boston for trial.
One of my ancestors tried to start the American Revolution about 80 years too early. He lead a rebellion against the governor of New Hampshire. One of his most vocal complaints was that the governor was too tolerant of Papists. He ended up in the Tower of London.
But…you say, that all went out the window with the Bill of Rights. Did you sleep through that class too? When it was adopted, it only applied to the FEDERAL government. Here is the language:
Individual states were free to regulate religion–and some did.
Yes, of course, eventually that changed. I am so glad it did! Still, I don’t think we should rewrite history.
You can be expelled for breaking the honor code at BYU. That could include gay or straight sex, as well as lots of other things. (Ironically) I don’t know as much about Yeshiva.
SomeOldGuy - I appreciate that you shared the link and allowed me to understand better what was really going on at Duke. Definitely a much different perspective than what I had originally from the drive-by media version of the facts and circumstances involved.
Things that are unknown and strange to us tend to cause us to have emotional reactions that aren’t totally rational and are based in fear. For a lot of Americans I think, and I have to include myself here, the adhan in particular represents something, whether consciously or unconsciously, that we unjustly associate with people who fly airplanes into buildings. You made me stop and think about this, and I can grow personally from that.
So thank you for sharing.
Out of curiosity, what did you think was going on at Duke?
I had participated on that thread; my objection to it wasn’t based on the religion per se, more about how intrusive the sound might be into everyday life (which I’m ill qualified to comment on, not being affiliated with Duke and not knowing how disruptive the sound would be).
While we are on the subject of intellectual honesty, let us remember that no one is in fact asking you to pay for someone’s contraception. They are asking you to pay PART of the cost of someone’s health insurance. (This is a result of the, IMHO unfortunate, societal decision to tie health insurance to employment. I look forward to the day when we have single-payer universal coverage.) How that insurance is used is up to the individual–who in all likelihood also contributes to the cost–and his/her doctors. Your religious beliefs might include all kids of things: a ban on blood transfusions, for example. It is no more reasonable for you to be able to dictate how that person uses their health care benefit than it is for you to dictate how they spend their salary. Both are compensation for employment.
They are in charge of SCIENCE not theology. Nothing is preventing you from augmenting your children’s education with whatever faith you wish. Or you can choose to homeschool, or send your children to a religious school that follows your beliefs.
It may be that the public school chooses to cover “comparative religion” at some point. That’s fine, too. My S had a unit on that subject in middle school.
@marysidney, another magnificent post, #140
Good one! Even though directed at my post, I found this quite funny. 
As for your post, you are conflating two different issues. There is a huge qualitative difference between accommodating the practice of another’s religion in a public arena and the asking of someone to tacitly support a belief and openly allow an action that is contrary to one’s religion. One is an external accommodation; the other is asking for an internal, philosophical accommodation.
As for the Duke example, regardless of how one sees it, it would have required that people of other religions to inadvertently partake in listening to another’s religious practice - something others may not want to do, as difficult to shut one’s ears off. No one though was asking any group to accept or allow a different belief, just that not to force others to be part of their practice without ability to opt out.
In contrast, in the example I cited at the two different religious schools, the one religious school by allowing an LGBT chapter would have been an implicit endorsement in accepting legitimacy of such beliefs and actions by allowing school property, resources, and money to be used to support the group. That is asking that one allow the presentation of a belief and practice that the school morally disagrees with and teaches against, which is very different than asking to simply opt out of a public part of another’s religious practice.
And for the record, the religious school did accommodate the LGBT students by openly accepting and educating them like any other student. What the school would not do, however, was put itself in a position to be seen as supporting a belief and activity contrary to its creed. In fact, to the school, it would be no different than allowing a pro-abortion group on campus, which is another group it does not allow, as the school teaches and preaches against abortion.
In summary, it is one thing to accommodate a public part of a religious practice; it’s another to ask for approval of an activity with which one morally disagrees with and teaches that it is wrong.
Thanks for the link in the other post.
Hmmm. I wonder how people would feel if a private LAC refused to allow the Young Earth Creationism Society to meet on campus, on the grounds that it wouldn’t support a group that was spreading disinformation. (I recall that there was a hoo-ha at Liberty about whether students could form a Young Democrats chapter on campus–I don’t recall how that came out.)
What part of “LGBT” falls under the term “belief”, exactly?
“As for the Duke example, regardless of how one sees it, it would have required that people of other religions to inadvertently partake in listening to another’s religious practice - something others may not want to do, as difficult to shut one’s ears off.”
I’m sure you feel the exact same way about the church bells tolling Christian hymns. Oh wait - “that’s different.”
I think there is an argument to be made based on disruptiveness of a proposed practice, but that’s a different argument.