Gym

For a moment, let’s assume the a Christian organization asked Harvard University to prohibit women from using a University gym during certain hours so that men could have it for themselves. Their argument is that their religious feelings made co-ed work-outs uncomfortable for men. Do you think (1) women’s groups at Harvard would accede without protest and (2) that Harvard would grant the request? Not likely.

The Daily Free Press reports that Harvard has in fact instituted such a policy, but at the request of the Harvard Islamic Society and for Moslem women.

Harvard Islamic Society's Islamic Knowledge Committee officer Ola Aljawhary, a junior, said the women-only hours are being tested on a trial basis. The special gym hours will be analyzed over Spring Break to determine if they will continue, she said.

Aljawhary said that she does not believe that the women-only gym hours discriminate against men.

"These hours are necessary because there is a segment of the Harvard female population that is not found in gyms not because they don't want to work out, but because for them working out in a co-ed gym is uncomfortable, awkward or problematic in some way," she said.

Though the policy was in part initiated by the school's Islamic group, Aljawhary said women-only hours are not a case of "minority rights trumping majority preference" and said women of different faiths have showed interest in the hours.

"We live together in one community, it only makes sense for everyone to compromise slightly in order for everyone to live happily," she said. "This matter is simple: Can't we just display basic decency and show tolerance and inclusion for people not a part of the mainstream majority?"

In an earlier post, I mentioned that our freedoms and hard won rights are eroded in very small increments, and that the strategy of Islamists and their sympathizers is to do just that. Drip, Drip, Drip.