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November 12, 2005
US: Religious Holidays Reinstated, But No Muslim Holidays For Eid
We reported in October that the Council on American-Islamic Relations had tried to have the end of Ramadan, Eid ul-Fitr, instated as a religious holiday for schools. The proposal had been put forward by Ahmed Bedier, a spokesperson for CAIR in December, to have the Hillsborough County School Board amend its 2006 to 2007 calendar to instate Eid as a religious holiday, along with Yom Kippur and Good Friday.
Bedier was not pleased when the school board at Hillsborough, in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, announced that by a 6 to 1 vote it had decided that, rather than instate a new religious holiday, all religious holidays would be removed from the calendar. The board member who voted no was Jennifer Faliero, who said that after checking with lawyers, Good Friday is considered a secular holiday. "It is now about the Easter Bunny. ... They have taken religion out of it completely," she opined.
To make up for the lost two days of school holidays, the board replaced these with time off for Washington's birthday, and two days at the end of the year. Bedier said the board's decision was "just an excuse to hide bias against the Muslims."
The announcement of the decision sent Christian activists into overdrive, according to WorldNet Daily, with Jerry Falwell, the Baptist leader urging pastors to place advertisements in local newspapers throughout the US, and Hillsborough County Commissioner Brian Blair brought up the issue on "The O'Reilly Factor" on the Fox News channel.
On Tuesday night, the board had another vote, this time to reinstate Yom Kippur, Good Friday and the Monday after Easter. By a vote of 5 to 2, the holidays were returned to their original place in the calendar. Eid did not have a vote, probably because the anger about the reversal was blamed on Muslims, most notably CAIR, described by WorldNet Daily thus:
Several individuals connected to the Council on American-Islamic Relations have been indicted on terrorism-related charges. In addition, CAIR's chairman of the board, Omar Ahmad, was cited by a California newspaper in 1998 declaring the Quran should be America's highest authority. He also was reported to have said Islam is not in America to be equal to any other religion but to be dominant.Ahmed Bedier said after the vote that the measure was a "temporary solution" and claimed "I'm disappointed but I'm satisfied. We're back at square one. If others are getting their holidays, it gives us hope we'll get ours as well someday."
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 12, 2005 7:04 PM
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