Minn. Paper More Sensitive to Church-State than Mosque-State

April 25th, 2007 9:22 AM

The left is famous for its general intolerance and suspicion of religion, especially in the public sector. Yet, increasingly, an exception seems to be made for Islam.

Scott at Power Line caught another instance of this in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune where the normally anti-religious editorial page is oddly favorable to a local college's installation of a foot-washing basin for Islamic students:

It's worth remembering that this question first arose at MCTC as a matter of safety, not religion. A student slipped and fell after another student used a campus sink to wash his or her feet. [...]

Banning Christmas carols on the official campus coffee cart -- which incensed the school's critics -- seems plainly in keeping with a long string of court rulings that forbid the use of public resources to endorse a particular religion. But accommodating the prayer practices of some devout Muslims seems akin to putting kosher items on the cafeteria menu and letting employees display religious objects in their private workspaces -- accommodations that MCTC has in fact made in the past.

The argument makes no sense whatsoever. Could not the presence of a foot-washing basin be considered an offense to those who think Islam is a cult? Of course it could. The Star Tribune is completely inconsistent here.

Related: American moderate Muslim: American left caters to Islamists out of misguided minority politics