School prayer ‘slippery slope,’ rally told
This is a question that’s easy to find remedy for in the US since a publicly funded facility is being used. In US courts policies favoring one religion over others usually fail to meet constitutional muster. There are exceptions in some areas where one religion is highly predominant (e.g. Amish enclaves, Hassidic Communities, etc,) but even when those exceptions get to federal level the constitution usually prevails.
Calls for the defunding of Ontario Catholic school boards and a ban on prayer services in public schools by Muslim students were loud at Queen’s Park on Sunday.
Farzana Hassan, of the Muslim Canadian Congress, described as “gender apartheid” the Friday prayer service that takes place at Valley Park Middle School, on Overlea Blvd., for more than 100 Muslim students.
“It gives Muslim girls the perception they are inferior to boys since they have to sit in the back,” Hassan told about 100 members of the Canadian Secular Alliance, and supportive groups on hand. “This practice should not be endorsed by the TDSB for a public institution because it is unjust and degrading to women.”
She said the religious practice is against Canadian gender equality laws.
“Muslim women suffer discrimination in the U.S. and Canada,” Hassan said. “They have to pray behind partitions in Islamic institutions.”
Toronto Police were called to keep an eye on a similar protest on Saturday outside the Toronto District School Board offics, during which groups that were for and against Muslim prayer service in schools sounded off.
Alliance president Greg Oliver told demonstrators there will be a lineup of other religions waiting to get into the schools to pray now that Muslims are allowed to use a cafeteria for their 40-minute service.
“This is a slippery slope,” Oliver said. “Muslims stand to benefit from secularism in schools just as anyone else.”
Other students are not allowed to use the cafeteria during the Muslim prayer service, in which an outside imam is brought in to instruct the children.