School Trip is Compulsory, Everyone Flips Out

Link is here, but the rundown is this: Roman Catholic girls' school holds compulsory school trip to a mosque, for which the students are asked to wear leggings and a scarf over their hair.

Mother refuses;

Quote :

“If the trip had been without the leggings and the headscarf, that would have been fine but I wasn't having my daughter dressed in the Muslim way... the fact is Amy is Catholic and not a Muslim … This is an infringement of her human rights... I'm not a devout Catholic, I've never claimed to be but my daughter is a white, British Catholic girl - not a Muslim girl, therefore she is not adhering to a Muslim dress code."

School responds;

Quote :

A teacher then telephoned Miss Owen telling her that if her daughter did not go on the trip, organised by the Religious Education department, it would be marked down as an "unauthorised absence"... insisted that the visit was as compulsory as a geography field trip....

“The school is REQUIRED to promote tolerance respect and understanding,”... the school, which was described in a recent Catholic diocesan report as having an “outstanding” religious environment, also organized visits to Auschwitz and meetings with holocaust survivors as part of the same commitment to learning about other faiths and cultures.

“In keeping with accepted good practice and the school’s status as a humanities college we are pleased to provide students with an experience of a visit to a Mosque and the chance to talk and question a representative of the community which it serves,” he said.

“This is an exciting and for many, a unique opportunity to learn at first hand how Islamic practices and beliefs map against their own.”

And apparently,

Quote :

“It's like they're putting a gun to your head, either you go to a mosque, or you're marked down as an unauthorised absence on your record, that's it no two ways about it,”... “It's like they are saying she is playing truant for not wearing a headscarf.

'Cause you know, I'm sure they'd be thrilled if someone walked into one of their churches dressed in a bikini.




Inb4 "not news" "not WGW", etc. It made me facepalm, so I'm posting it.

Quote :

I'm not a devout Catholic, I've never claimed to be but my daughter is a white, British Catholic girl - not a Muslim girl, therefore she is not adhering to a Muslim dress code

(Bolding mine: what the fuck has being white to do with it?)

"I know fuck-all 'bout my religion and plan to stay that way!"

Idjit.

Quote :

A teacher then telephoned Miss Owen telling her that if her daughter
did not go on the trip, organised by the Religious Education
department, it would be marked down as an "unauthorised absence"...
insisted that the visit was as compulsory as a geography field trip....

In related news in Italy, it was recently established that the mark received for 'Religion' counts towards the overall grading of a student. Muslims, Jehova's witnesses, atheists and agnostics who do not attend will either suck up or have poorer performance assesment since 9 schools out of 10 do not have any alternative class. The thread is now returned to its former topic.

OMG asking people to respect the dress code of another religious institute, that's just absolutely terrible. Worst thing ever. It's just leggings and a scarf, not the full get up calm down lady.

Seriously, these people are just stupid.

I guess she forgets that mantillas, hats, veils, and scarves were fairly common in Catholic churches (I'm assuming Roman Catholic here, rather than something like Eastern Orthodox) until quite recently, in the grand scheme of things, and before that they were outright required. So her bleating about it being a totally Muslim dress code shows how much she actually knows about her religion.

Freedom to not respect others but demand it for yourself! Fuck yeah constitution on my side WOO STARS AND STRIPES

Verandering wrote:

Freedom to not respect others but demand it for yourself! Fuck yeah constitution on my side WOO STARS AND STRIPES

Except that the close-minded bigot (in this case) is BRITISH!

RED FONT
I should read articles more often.

Just black marker it and put in the appriopriate patriotic declarations. Same diff.

Funny thing about this, I went to a mosque on a school trip in about, year 5 I think. All we had to do special was take our shoes off and none of the girls where allowed in to see the bit where the dead where prepared for burial. Weather my case was the exception or the rule makes me wonder.

Is this woman aware that you're supposed to cover your head in Catholic services as well?

Lapin wrote:

Is this woman aware that you're supposed to cover your head in Catholic services as well?

It's not required anymore at your typical church's Mass. I believe it may be required when meeting with the Pope, though. It's still fairly popular in some regions, however. Mantillas are still in use a lot in Spain.

CATHOLICS TRY TO DO SOMETHING GOOD AND AWESOME

OTHER CATHOLICS FUCK IT UP

THIS IS WHY I HATE YOU

Quote :

“If the trip had been without the leggings and the headscarf, that would
have been fine but I wasn't having my daughter dressed in the Muslim
way."

Why not? Good grief, the mother's acting like it's a sin in catholicism to wear a
headscarf, but it's not. Also, you ignorant cow, it's 'the ISLAMIC way'.

If I wore a nun's habit for a few hours, would that mean I believed in
God? Of course not. That is one of the most bigoted things I've ever
heard a person say.

The woman's problem is not in the fact that her daughter should wear a headscarf, but in that the class is showing respect to another religion in their place of worship.

And it's a school trip. Like a geography trip, or a trip to a cathedral to admire the architecture. If the girl's not attending without reason of sickness or something, then yes, it's an unauthorised absence.

Quote :

“It's like they're putting a gun to your head, either you go to a
mosque, or you're marked down as an unauthorised absence on your record,
that's it no two ways about it,”

Huh? How is being threatened with an unauthorised absence the same as being threatened with a gun to your head?

I wonder if she knows that a number of the cathedrals in the Vatican require women to cover up in some way. I know a few women that weren't allowed to even wear pants inside one or two of them.

Somath Cegem wrote:

Funny thing about this, I went to a mosque on a school trip in about, year 5 I think. All we had to do special was take our shoes off and none of the girls where allowed in to see the bit where the dead where prepared for burial. Weather my case was the exception or the rule makes me wonder.

We went to a mosque while I was in undergrad, and all we had to do was take our shoes off as well. However, we weren't there during a service; we were just there for a lecture and a tour of the grounds, and our guide said if we came back for a service, we would have to wear hijabs.

What was required, however, was that you do dress appropriately--no shorts, no hole-riddled jeans, no ratty t-shirts. But that was also the dress code when we went to Hsi Lai temple, the local diocesan cathedral, and a local synagogue. In other words, in a manner respectful to the environment which we were in.

Come on, people. Experiencing someone else's religion won't kill you, but your adamant adherence to ignorance is killing me. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The Unoriginal wrote:

In related news in Italy, it was recently established that the mark received for 'Religion' counts towards the overall grading of a student. Muslims, Jehova's witnesses, atheists and agnostics who do not attend will either suck up or have poorer performance assesment since 9 schools out of 10 do not have any alternative class.

In Romania, we've had religion classes in school for years, but as for kids who weren't Eastern Orthodox, they'd simply have their final grade averaged from all the other classes, excluding just Religion. (Or they could bring papers from their own denomination's teachers with the grades they received in the study of their own religion.) By highschool, you didn't even have to bring papers to prove you belonged to some other faith. The headmaster was a real cool guy; when one guy insisted his denomination was "free-thinker", he just shrugged and wrote down "other" in the Religion section.

To be fair, though, it was always the kind of class where you just had to show up to get high marks. It probably helped that the teachers were usually priests, therefore very patient and tolerant of our antics.

So you can have religion in school, if you want to, or if it's in a religiously homogenous society, but uh... yeah, Italy's doing it wrong.

Azzandra wrote:

In Romania, we've had religion classes in school for years, but as for kids who weren't Eastern Orthodox, they'd simply have their final grade averaged from all the other classes, excluding just Religion. (Or they could bring papers from their own denomination's teachers with the grades they received in the study of their own religion.) By highschool, you didn't even have to bring papers to prove you belonged to some other faith. The headmaster was a real cool guy; when one guy insisted his denomination was "free-thinker", he just shrugged and wrote down "other" in the Religion section.

I keep forgetting that the fall of Communism was twenty years ago. So... you have different teachers for, say, Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants...? Here the Religion teachers are appointed by the local Church authorities. There was quite the uproar when one was removed from her role for getting a divorce (OTOH they have such a 'reserved lane' in other respects that the indignation did not last long).
The one teacher that will remain forever in my heart was a disgruntled former Communist who spoke fluent Russian, restored icons and dissected the ontological argument... even though he graded me 'scarce'.

Now I get why Romania is so much maligned around here. Envy; pure, unadulterated envy.

OMG BROKEN BRITAIN THE MUSLIMS ARE TAKING OVER!

I hope the school does give that awful little bigot an unauthorised absence.

The Unoriginal wrote:

Azzandra wrote:

In Romania, we've had religion classes in school for years, but as for kids who weren't Eastern Orthodox, they'd simply have their final grade averaged from all the other classes, excluding just Religion. (Or they could bring papers from their own denomination's teachers with the grades they received in the study of their own religion.) By highschool, you didn't even have to bring papers to prove you belonged to some other faith. The headmaster was a real cool guy; when one guy insisted his denomination was "free-thinker", he just shrugged and wrote down "other" in the Religion section.

I keep forgetting that the fall of Communism was twenty years ago. So... you have different teachers for, say, Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants...?

Actually, we have just one teacher, for the Eastern Orthodox. For kids of other faiths, they either opt out entirely or go to Sunday school and bring their grades in at the end of the year.

Quote :

Now I get why Romania is so much maligned around here. Envy; pure, unadulterated envy.

You have no idea how fundamentally fucked-up a country has to become before they can start envying us. Let's just say that you wouldn't have so many of our folks over there if living here was in any way preferable. We have the highest emmigration rates in Europe and practically every single kid born since 1990 has at least one parent living abroad (my mom lives in Portugal, for example). We call them strawberry-pickers.

I really have nothing much to add beyond what everyone's already said, but:

AngryRobotsInc wrote:

Mantillas are still in use a lot in Spain.

Nnnnnnooo they're not. As in, I've been here for the better part of a decade and have yet to see, um, anyone wearing one of those. In actuality their use is pretty much restricted to Sevilla/Andalucía, and even then during Easter or when there's bullfighting or whatever.

But anyway. Good on that school, shame on that mother. Though it seems to me that the child's gonna get marked down for the trouble her mother's causing, which isn't precisely fair, either.

Adagio wrote:

I really have nothing much to add beyond what everyone's already said, but:

AngryRobotsInc wrote:

Mantillas are still in use a lot in Spain.

Nnnnnnooo they're not. As in, I've been here for the better part of a decade and have yet to see, um, anyone wearing one of those. In actuality their use is pretty much restricted to Sevilla/Andalucía, and even then during Easter or when there's bullfighting or whatever.

I will admit it's been a while since I studied this stuff. So they've probably fell out of favor since I read anything about it. Pardon my ignorance.

Sooooo the school has no alternative in place? I love situations where both sides are uncompromising twats.

Does a single recalcitrant mother really count as "everyone"?

Penguin wrote:

Sooooo the school has no alternative in place?

An alternative for a compulsory trip? Yeah, I'm baffled as to why they didn't have one in place too.

And @ AngryRobots—no worries! Out of curiosity, what kind of course did you take where you had to study the use of mantillas?

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Quote :

“It's like they're putting a gun to your head, either you go to a
mosque, or you're marked down as an unauthorised absence on your record,
that's it no two ways about it,”

Huh? How is being threatened with an unauthorised absence the same as being threatened with a gun to your head?

BECAUSE TERRORISTS

Adagio wrote:

And @ AngryRobots—no worries! Out of curiosity, what kind of course did you take where you had to study the use of mantillas?

I was raised Roman Catholic, and it was covered in my CCD lessons.