...Valley Park’s prayer services, which until recently operated without complaint, have raised a debate about the place of religion in an increasingly diverse public system. One Hindu group plans protests, and the progressive Muslim Canadian Congress is contemplating legal action to force the board to comply with the Education Act.
“Charter cases have said . . . you cannot accommodate the desire for prayers or religious instruction in a public school,” said constitutional lawyer Ed Morgan, of the University of Toronto.
Something after school, or on weekends, would be fine, he added.
But Muslims must pray at a certain time on Fridays so “we have the duty to accommodate,” said board superintendent Jim Spyropoulos.
The prayer services have also raised the issue of gender rights. One Toronto trustee is concerned about girls being forced to sit at the back of the room, adding the board’s gender equity policy “should be respected.”
Trustee Michael Coteau doesn’t oppose the services but believes the board needs a transparent, consistent policy about what’s allowed given the “mixed messages” of the Education Act, the Charter and human rights code.
Ontario’s Education Act states that “a board shall not permit any person to conduct religious exercises or to provide instruction that includes indoctrination in a particular religion or religious belief in a school.” An exemption is allowed if conducted outside of school hours.
Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky was unavailable for comment despite repeated requests from the Star.
On Friday, her spokesperson said while boards must be “sensitive to religious beliefs . . . it is also important for them to continue the conversation with all...Ah, yes--"conversation." As if that's likely to get you anywhere when squishy liberal guilt comes up against implacable certitude re the primacy of Allah's rules.
To return to what, precisely, occurs at this Toronto public school at Friday prayer-time:
Earlier this year, the Star visited Valley Park to observe the prayer service, which runs every Friday from November to March for 30 to 40 minutes during class time after lunch.
Volunteers erected barriers dividing the cafeteria. Boys entered at the front, removed their shoes, forming rows four deep. Girls entered at the back, removed their shoes, donned head scarves and shawls to cover their heads and arms, and assembled behind the barrier.
Menstruating girls sat at the back, permitted to listen but not take part.
The service is conducted in Arabic and the school does not monitor what is said.
About 300 to 400 of Valley Park’s 1,200 students take part in the Friday ritual, which parents requested three years ago. Prior, students left school to go to a nearby mosque, but some didn’t make it there and many never returned to class.Forcing girls in a public, taxpayer-funded facility to acknowledge their religiously-decreed second class status: Hey, it sounds totally kosher, Education Act-wise and Charter-wise, don't you think?
Update: A word that should be introduced to every member of the TDSB: dhimmitude. Bat Ye'or, the scholar who came up with it, defines it as
a behavior dictated by fear (terrorism), pacifism when aggressed, rather than resistance, servility because of cowardice and vulnerability. The origin of this concept is to be found in the condition of the Infidel people who submit to the Islamic rule without fighting in order to avoid the onslaught of jihad. By their peaceful surrender to the Islamic army, they obtained the security for their life, belongings and religion, but they had to accept a condition of inferiority, spoliation and humiliation. As they were forbidden to possess weapons and give testimony against a Muslim, they were put in a position of vulnerability and humility.I'd say that describes supine Barbara Hall's and the servile Toronto school board's "accommodation" to a T.
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What "tolerance" has come down to, in the world of governmental multi-cultidom, is deference to the perceived willingness of the various "communities" to do violence in order to enforce their demands.
You can bet your bottom dollar that, if instead of adherents of the Religion of Peace (TM), an Orthodox synagogue had approached the school to hold Misnah services, or a Catholic church to recite the rosary, they would have been told to take a long hike on a short pier, no matter how persuasively the rabbi or the priest argued that daily prayer is an obligation for their congregants. But then, neither Orthodox Jews nor Roman Catholics are likely to riot or set off bombs because a public school has denied them the use of its facilities during school hours.
Some of the greater deference shown to Moslems in these matters is just raw physical fear of their potentially violent response, but some of it is due (IMHO) to the Left's sense that a propensity for violence establishes the "authenticity" of a cause. During the latter phase of the Civil Rights Movement, in the U. S., for example, black radicals who explcitly or implicitly incited violence were exalted above more reasonable leaders who eschewed it. Thus, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan have been mainstreamed, whereas Roy Innis has been marginalized. Other, originally reasonable Civil Rights figures, like Jesse Jackson, have learned the lesson (though they generally stay within the margins of _implicit_ threats of violence.
Naturally, the West's new Moslem minorities have had the opportunity to learn from the history of the U. S. Civil Rights movement that threatening collective violence gets results. If you reward a behavior, you are certain to get more of it, so we should not be surprised to see Moslems extort privileges that the rest of us don't get.
As Kate McMillan likes to say, ". . . not showing up to riot is a failed conservative strategy."
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