Neither Melting Pot Nor Mixed Salad

[elfs]

The phrase "Melting Pot" was once the great ideal of American culture: people who came here became Americans, first and foremost, their foreignness subsumed by a broad array of American cultural norms. Over the years, individuals and communities asserted their right to retain some of their culture, and the story became "Mixed Salad": identifiable individuality and group membership but all getting along in a more or less harmonious blend.

Now, we're a cheap metal tray in a bad buffet for retirees, the kind with the ridges that keep every food on the tray completely separate from every other. Nothing makes that clearer than an article in the Seattle Times which should be labeled, Dhimmitude Comes To The Emerald City.

Jewish and Amish and other communities that wish to keep their interests separate from those of "America" in general do a good job of creating their own alternative outlets, and those private interests are exempt from the laws that require equal access. Private rentals of public pools falls into that category, and the Seattle Times article makes a point of mentioning that the "Muslim Women Only" pool times are "a private rental."

However, the "private renter" is the Children's Home Society, which last year received 2/3rds of its funding from government agencies. When asked to explain the contradiction, the woman at CHS explained that they were funding the swim "to respect the immigrant womens' culture."

I'm sorry, and I know this is "politically incorrect," but we have to recognize that "separate but equal" treatment from the government does not work, and the last thing I want my tax money going to is encouraging people who have chosen to live in America to behave like they're not Americans. If Muslim women want to use a pool in a private and exclusionary way, they should come up with private and exclusionary funds with which to do it, rather than use taxpayer cash. If they can't, well, that will tell us all something about the attitude of Islam toward women. I object to playing the dhimmi^[?] and having my taxes become jizyah^[?].

Comments

[jatg.livejournal.com]

Amen brotha!

or

So say we all!


or Hear Hear!


But yeah. In this instance, I totally agree with you.

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

Hmm, "rather than use taxpayer cash" -- are you presuming the women involved are not taxpayers? Even if they are unemployed immigrants, they pay, at the very least, the same sales taxes as anyone else, and since income taxes come out of earnings which depend on consumer spending, they do sort of participate in paying your taxes. The issue is the government support for religious segregation, not where the money comes from (objecting in principle to every use of tax funds which pay for something which you personally have no use for is another interesting issue, but if you are not a tax dissenter whose money was seized, then you did hand over your money to the government voluntarily and it is for them to use as they see fit -- it is no longer yours).

But this other issue -- religious segregation -- is, I agree, highly improper. The CHS should be warned about a possible loss of funding, like a segregationist university would. The worst thing is that the swim time is for "Moslem Women Only", excluding women on the basis of faith, for no reason I can fathom; I know of no Islamic orthodoxy that specifies that women must be shielded from the eyes of female infidels -- only the male gaze is proscribed.

I presume you would not object to the CHS hosting a "Women Only" swim time with no religious stipulations?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

The problem is that we are all taxpayers, but this is a "special right" being granted outside of those granted to mainstream taxpayers.

And yes, I would object to a taxpayer-funded organization that differentiated based on sex alone, rather than "sex-and-religion." If a group of women want to use public-accomodation recreational facilities, they can do it on their own dime like everyone else.

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

Ah, if it's not just a separation of church and state issue for you, but an issue of tax support for any restrictive uses, than it's a whole 'nother kettle of worms to fry! Errr.... :)

At least in Canada, all sorts of minority and gender based organizations and projects get government funding; I've always presumed it was similar in the States. If that is the case, and tax funds go to some such organizations, I'll present a hypothetical: would you advocate that organizations such as battered women's shelters wanting the use of public facilities "do it on their own dime", abandoning government funding, or that they open their doors to males as well? Or would you be satisfied as long as they could show that the percentage-of-monies-spent-on-discriminatory-uses is lesser than the share of their annual income coming from non-governmental sources (and so could have been paid for without the use of taxes)? Of course in the last scenario, there is still the problem that donors to such exclusive causes get a tax deduction for charitable contributions, so in a way the government's money is still diminished...