Sometimes campus conservatism confuses me. Let me get this straight:
It's wrong for a university to have a single-sex gym, even for a few hours, yet it's also wrong for a university not to have single-sex bathrooms?
Sure, several years have passed, and it's not the same people, but in general it's the same movement.
(I'm ambivalent about the restroom issue, but offended that other people are offended by the gym accommodations. What possible harm could this do? When we do silly things that gratuitously offend Muslims, we lose all leverage for arguing the non-silly things (the societally crucial things like free speech) that also offend Muslims.)
Posted by Matt Bruce at March 6, 2008 12:12 PMIs there an equivalent gym that's for males only for the same period of time?
Harvard is free to do what Harvard wants to do. The rest of us can make fun of them for being inconsistent boobs. But in the land of the free, we're loath to kowtow to any religious view for any reason. If the members of the religion want to live out the quirks of their faith, they're the ones doing the heavy lifting, not the government.
Don't like having to work out in front of men? Join an gym exclusive to women. The beauty is, the aggrieved Muslims are not the first women to want no men around when they work out. They're just the first ones to get their way.
When large organizations start taking steps to placate some religious views, they'll need to start taking larger steps to placate all religious views. And if letting all students use the gym at all times instead of excluding males from the gym at certain times "gratuitously offend(s) Muslims", doesn't that tell you something?
On that note: I wonder if the Harvard Crimson published the Danish Muhammad cartoons, to argue the non-silly matter of free speech. I'm not even going to look this one up. Do I have egg on my face here?
Posted by: ZD at March 6, 2008 04:15 PMMatthew Yglesias agrees with you, and has a good take on it along the lines of what small stuff people sweat and what they don't.
I've never seen this many comments on a post there, though!
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/religious_accommodation.php
Posted by: M.S. at March 7, 2008 10:26 AM