Minn. college under fire over tax-funded Muslim foot baths

Minn. college under fire over tax-funded Muslim foot baths

A former Department of Justice official says a Minnesota college is rolling out the welcome mat for Muslim religious expression while demonstrating hostility toward the mildest forms of Christian religious expression.

Columnist Katherine Kersten of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis reports that the Minneapolis Community and Technical College "is making plans to use taxpayer funds to install facilities for ritual foot-washing" since many Muslim students have been using restroom sinks to wash their feet before prayer. However, Kersten says the same school that is going out of its way to accommodate Muslim students has in the past banned various religious practices related to Christmas, including Christmas music.

Bill Otis, director of legal affairs at the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) and a former special counsel to President George H.W. Bush, says if the school is going to respect the rituals of one religion, it should at least be tolerating Christmas music.

"I just don't understand the difference in treatment -- and I think it says something about people who pretend to be just 'enforcing' the constitutional separation between church and state," says Otis. "It certainly looks to me like whether this separation is to be taken seriously depends on what religion we're talking about -- and that's wrong."

The ACRU spokesman says he finds it "terribly inconsistent and wrong-headed" to permit Muslims to use the school facilities for their religious rituals while at the same time prohibiting Christians to use those same facilities for such things as prayer.

"If we're going to have one, let's have the other; if we can't both, then have neither," he states. "But it's wrong to have one and not the other."

Otis contends the Constitution does draw a line between church and state, but "the line is one of neutrality, not hostility."