Parents Angry London Becoming 'Mid America' After School Bans Watching Eclipse For Religious Reasons

[KamaAina]

http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/london_parent_complains_we_will_be_like_mid_america_after_school_bans_kids_from_eclipse

Children at North Primary School in the Southall suburb of London spent time studying about solar eclipses, and the night before this past week's eclipse made pinhole cameras at home. But many students, mostly 4 to 11 years old, and their parents were angered when, at the last minute, the children were prohibited from watching the eclipse they had been waiting and preparing for....

"The school made this decision when we became aware of religious and cultural concerns associated with observing an eclipse directly," Ivor Johnstone, headteacher of North Primary School, told parents.

Johnstone did not elaborate what "religious and cultural concerns" there were, but The Telegraph reports "some Hindu scriptures say that an eclipse makes believers impure," and "fundamentalists believe that they need to bathe immediately after an eclipse and chant the name of God to overcome the forces of darkness."...

"I am outraged - is it going to be Darwin next? We will be like mid America," Phil Belman told The Evening Standard. "I am extremely upset about it."

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Why not elaborate? If the concerns were real enough...

to get the school to do this, they should be real enough to expose.

I'll admit that the school might have been worried about attacks on the complainers, but in the end-- tough shit.

[vanlassie]

2. How soon until we can't say the earth is round?

[progressoid]

3. I'm not sure which is more depressing.

That this shit is happening in London or that mid America is the joke of the world.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. Indeed

[CherokeeDem]

5. Couldn't agree more....

I have friends in Paris and Glasgow. We have these conversations often when some ridiculous thing happens in the US. It is so hard for them to understand some of the things that happen here, and I can't explain it either.

[Hekate]

6. >sigh< We should be embarrassed at being the bad example for backward beliefs. nt