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Old 10-24-2009, 11:47 PM   #265
Lorien Lowe
Dojo: Northcoast Aikido
Location: California
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 289
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Re: Religious Restrictions on Training

Due respect, but I'm not going to go out and buy and read a book in order to bolster someone else's argument on an internet forum. I have a stack of books literally three feet tall that I'm working on, and I feel no need to add to it for your sake. Try making the argument on your own rather than insisting that others pick up your indoctrination material.

Second class citizen? Yes. Treating someone else like they are too dirty to touch does have an impact. Humans are social organisms; one would have to be a sociopath to be unaffected by treatment like that.

My dojo recently became non-profit; we've had Jewish and Muslim students in the past, and this hasn't been a problem for them. The only thing that was different was that the muslim students wouldn't do a full bow - no biggie. Refusing to train with women would be a much bigger problem, especially given that half of our teachers are women and a not insignificant proportion of the students are women. It would take a huge amount of gall for someone to come in and demand that the structure of the dojo be remade to accommodate their particular religious interpretation.

Last edited by Lorien Lowe : 10-24-2009 at 11:59 PM. Reason: additional commentary added
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