This is a good time to re-read an article we posted last September from reader Avi in which he tells us about the quiet jihad in Minnesota. Although it may seem innocuous to some of you, here is an article from AP about special accommodations in a community center in Minneapolis for Muslim girls, prohibited supposedly by Islam to be seen by men without head coverings and long dresses.
MINNEAPOLIS – Nearly every day, Somali boys and young men gather at the Brian Coyle Center in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood to shoot hoops in the gym.
But there are times when the boys are locked out — and the gym is set aside just for the girls.
In a single-sex environment, the high school students and young women can learn basketball, cut loose a little, and they don’t need to wear scarves and long skirts for religious modesty.
I’m not opposed to some single-sex opportunities for meetings, classes, gym times, but I wonder whether they can do it for specific religious reasons. Could a group of Catholic girls ask for the same privilege? I don’t know.
The Brian Coyle Center
This center located in the Cedar-Riverside section of Minneapolis (same neighborhood where some of the missing youths resided) has figured many times in posts we have written. It was the location where community meetings were held to discuss the murders of Somali youths in gang violence nearby, it was involved in questions about voter fraud on Nov. 4th, and its director testified recently at the Senate hearing on Somali terrorist recruitment.
The Brian Coyle Center is funded by a supposed non-profit group Pillsbury United Communities. The PUC employs 200 full and parttime staff, but like virtually all non-profits these days gets taxpayer funding. Its 2007 Form 990 lists government grants of $3,427,318, about a quarter of its approximately $12 million in funding for that year. Can they take public funding and then allow special religious accommodation in a public facility? Does anyone know?
An aside: We hear so much these days about the Obama Administration bringing socialism to the business community, but while we were all busy running our lives, these leftwing non-profits (like PUC) have gradually begun receiving taxpayer funding. The line between government and leftwing policy promoters is gone, and adding insult to injury we pay for it!