GETTING OUT OF THE RELIGION BUSINESS

With all the recent controversy at George Mason University with regard to prayer rooms and foot basisn to accommodate all students but soon strong-armed by the Muslim population, let's state clearly that GMU should just get out of the religion business altogether. Yeah, outsource it. Convert the space to classrooms or storage and let students return to fending for themselves spiritually. The truly spiritual don't need the damned props. They can be flexible and adjust their own schedules and behavior to meet their needs. Props are only necessary for ritualistic cults.

If this "meditation space" is officially non-denominational, and meant for quiet meditation, contemplation, and prayer, then several things need to happen.

First, definition of the originally intended university policy for the use of the space when it was built needs to be dredged up out of university records, printed, and POSTED in multiple locations there in that space for all to read. If a disagreement arises, the rules can be referred to.

Second, if barely anyone else was using the space except for the MSA, this does NOT mean it becomes the Muslims' de facto prayer space. It does NOT mean it becomes their "on campus mosque" by default. If the intended university policy was for the space to be shared, the Muslims MUST share. Their religion may teach that it supersedes all other religions, but there are lots of different types of people and if they can't or won't share, frankly they need to stop using that space and create one where they won't have to bully everyone else. I doubt they'll do this...it's not part of their demonstrated history. But I hope they'll surprise me.

Third, if in fact the space was intended to be shared equally by original official university policy, it is the duty of non-Muslim students who want to pray, contemplate, meditate, or simply sit quietly there to think by themselves, to point out the posted policy to the Muslim students, and tell them that they don't have a monopoly on the space.

Fourth, the university needs to be taken to task for not having the stones to enforce its own rules.

Fifth, if the Muslims don't like this scenario, they ought to consider leaving this country and moving to a majority Muslim country. In this country, public sites are supposed to be shared by all, equally. If that's an affront to their religion, they should go somewhere where they won't have to face that affront.

In my youth, I would never have thought of arguing against the practice of religion on campus—what I continue to have a problem with is that one religion is basically being given carte blanche to take over a "public" space for their own use, permanently, while all of the other religious organizations on campus are forced to lease their own space. So things are not so simple anymore.

Nobody is forcing any group of students to attend GMU. They can find a school near a mosque or a synagogue or a temple or a church or whatever somewhere. I'm sure there must be schools that meet these criteria. If a college near the desired house of worship doesn't offer the programs or the most favorable tuition—oh well, we all have to figure out what our priorities are going to be. Since when do we all have to be so pampered and catered to? How narcissistic is this expectation?

I do believe private colleges and universities should be free to affiliate themselves with religious organizations (and to not be pressured to accommodate others), as long as they advertise themselves as having these ties. There are too many special interests out there to please them all, so why even try to satisfy any of them? It's not worth it for the friction it creates! Isn't it asking enough of universities to address special educational concerns, without meddling in ancillary crap?

When are “Infidels” going to wise up to the fact that Muslims in the Balad al Kufr (the “lands of the unbelievers” or, another translation would be “the lands of the “unclean””) are here as the scouts and advance troops of Islam and their job is to stake out territory—physical, religious, legal. cultural, political, social—and then constantly expand that territory and advance the Jihad by terror or by intimidation, precisely the methodology the Qur'an dictates!

This is the face of “peaceful” Islam, as it uses intimidation and all the weapons a democracy, political correctness and Infidel weakness hands it to advance the day when Islam will rule all. These university prayer room squabbles are mere baby steps here but unless stopped, and stopped hard, these Muslims will own the school in a few years, the state in a couple of decades or less and, eventually, the whole damn country. To see where denial, good manners, ignorance about Islam and appeasement is leading us, take a look at Europe and what has become of it.

For those who think I exaggerate about Muslim’s mindset, I invite them to look at this recent Washington Post article examining the content of Saudi produced textbooks used to teach Muslim children in the U.S. including those in Virginia.

I suggest that a reading of the Qur’an, Hadiths and Sira will show that rather than being just “hate ideology,” the beliefs and actions taught in these Saudi publications come straight from these three core books of Islam.