While the members of the Hamtramck, Michigan city council have denied that they would put religion into politics, their actions show otherwise. They’ve already banned alcohol sales within 500 feet of local mosques, and allowed daily calls to prayer to reverberate through town as early as 6am.I suppose churches would want to be excepted from public noise ordinances insofar as they had church bells. On the other hand, they wouldn't generally be ringing them at six in the morning.
In Fairness, the Baptists Banned Alcohol Sales Too
America's first majority Muslim city has elected its first majority Muslim city council, and they've passed their first laws.
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Camel's nose.
Although, that at least has a fine American tradition we can relate to.
Yeah, the Baptists didn't just ban alcohol sales within 500 feet of a church, they banned it in the whole county. In the whole country, in coordination with some others.
I'm a fairly religious man, and I don't dislike Baptists as far as it goes. But I'm a biker, too. An American, you might even say, although the ethic goes back a little bit farther than anything American.
I'm afraid most people will get aggressive with their religion as soon as they're in the ascendancy. It's a long and depressing history. Islam presents special challenges, with the Koran's explicit emphasis on converting infidels by force, but we Christians have blown it our share of times, too.
I hate to point it out, but I not only cannot purchase alcohol on Sunday, but I'm not allowed to purchase anything save for "essentials" (food, diapers, medicine) prior to 1:30pm on Sundays thanks to blue laws. The last time there was a ballot initiative to repeal them was in 1996, and the churches fought tooth and nail against it. Normally, on our ballots there were explanations following each item which outlined what a yes or no vote meant. For example, on that year's ballot was a referendum to remove the language from the South Carolina Constitution forbidding intermarriage between races. The explanation stated that it was already unenforceable, but a yes vote would remove the wording from the Constitution entirely. For 5 of 6 referenda, there was such an explanation. For the referendum to remove the blue laws, there wasn't. And I'm not the smartest man in the world, but I'm pretty clever, and the wording on the referendum was so twisted and convoluted, that to this day I cannot tell you with 100% certainty that I'm sure I voted to remove them. Because lobbying from church groups could not keep the item off the ballot altogether, but they were able to keep the explanation off (and I'm pretty sure they told their parishioners which vote to cast). I guess that'll teach me to skip church, huh?
To put a more charitable construction on that kind of law, I think it was intended more to protect workers from employers who would make them work on Sunday morning, than to remove the alternative forms of useful activity or entertainment from people who didn't choose to go to church. But I'm sure there are many voters and policymakers who had in mind the second motive, too.
I think it was intended more to protect workers from employers who would make them work on Sunday morning
That would make sense if those businesses weren't open on Sundays, or Sunday mornings. Unfortunately that's not the case in my neck of the woods. I can't buy alcoholic beverages before noon on Sundays here, but the grocery store will sell me anything else in their stock (at least everything else I've tried to buy on Sunday mornings). They don't seem to lack for workers.
True enough--the only explanation for letting the store be open but not letting it sell certain products is nanny-state nonsense. But that's sort of a later development; originally you couldn't have the store open at all.
It does generalize to not being open on Fridays (for Muslims), nor Friday night through Saturday evening (for Jews), nor Sunday (for Christians). If the government needs to play this game, it would be better if it simply insisted that all workers be allowed to choose one day a week on which they would not work for religious (or other) reasons.
There was (is?) a bagel shop in Omaha that got around the blue laws. The Jewish partner took Friday and Saturday off while the Christian ran things. The Christian took Sunday and Monday off.* Shop opened at 0700 on Saturday and 0830 on Sunday (to catch the traffic leaving early Mass across the street.)
*The local codes had a loophole so that Jewish-owned businesses could be open on Sunday if they closed on Friday or Saturday.
LittleRed1
Just another reason to befriend those of different faiths -- provided they're friendly, of course. Or might be convinced to become so.
This is great, insofar as it's a demonstration of the 'little laboratories' at work. Let create an Islamic city, and we what their neighbors think of it...
Believing in the mercy and promises of the Leftist alliance is about as wise as doing it for Islam. But humans will always be fools, there is no curing that.
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