Full Version: Muslim Call to Prayer
QUOTE(Hobbes @ Jan 7 2005, 10:47 AM)
So, in a practical sense, this is the need that any remedy should address (and one I think the radio broadcast does an excellent job of...as it is quite easy for anyone to have a simple radio available in their prayer room).
There are clocks and computer programs around that are made specifically to do the call to prayer as well, but that isn't the issue. Constitutionally, the state is not violating the Constitution in allowing it, nor are they violating the Constitution in refusing to allow it.
This is your classic reverse discrimination. What if the city ( a governmental authority) wanted to broadcast a Christian prayer over loud speakers throughout the town? The fact that members of a minority religion asks for governmental aid does not give the government the right to endorse a religion, and by this city allowing prayer announcement to be amplified over the loud speaker, it breaches its governmental duty- to remain, as much as possible, religion neutral. It is, without a doubt, the right of Islamic people in this country to pray those five times a day, but it is not up to the government to tell them with those times are. The government has two options in my opinion. They can either abolish the practice or began granting air time to everyone. (I am careful not to say that they would have to grant air time to all religions here because the atheists would say that their rights would be compromised if this were so. By endorsing theism or deism the atheists right to not believe would be encroached).
jtoro, I don't know if you noticed this my previous post, but the city is granting airtime to everyone.
It doesn't single out any specific religion.
QUOTE
The new amendment says: “The City shall permit ‘call to prayer,’ ‘church bells’ and other means of announcing religious meetings to be amplified between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. for a duration not to exceed five minutes
It doesn't single out any specific religion.
There is one objection to the ordiance. It pretty much says that as long as the noises are made for religious purposes between certain hours, these religious affiliates will be able to do what would otherwise break the law. What about the atheists? If you only allow special privileges for religious people, aren't you, admittedly more tacitly, endorsing religion, at least as a whole, too? The state has long been able to place time, place and manner restrictions on civil liberties for the interest of society. If they decided to leave the law as it was, the would simply be placing one of the aforementioned restrictions.
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