Crucifixes disturb bigots

In 2003, Adel Smith a mohammedan, living in Italy, made a public campaign against the crucifix, first at his son’s school. He convinced one judge, and then lost to the next. He threw a crucifix out of a hospital room. He has been a frequent guest on italian radio and television. He began Unione dei musulmani d'Italia, and outside of recent albanians, it has few members. He is largely unsuccessful and is more of a carnival act. Very few people, including other mohammedans, support his goals.

Recently, Boston College has re-introduced crucifixes and icons into all of its classrooms. In Italy it was, also, institutes of the state, that displayed crucifixes. Boston College is not a state facility. It is a catholic school. In a campus paper and its electronique mail, The Observer, at least three chemistry professors objected. One says, he is a practicing anglican, and objects to the display of “religious art” [his repeated use of quotation marks], he expected such behavior from Notre Dame, but not there. Chemistry professor Amir Hoveyda has been particularly aggrieved and has been quoted in a few different papers. Most of the professors, who have publicly complained, have confessed to not being catholic.

Other remarks whine: bait and switch, intolerance, false pretenses, forced imposition. I doubt there is any law, in effect in Boston, that demands governmental flags to be displayed in private institutions. I have never been to Boston, I am sure there are such flags in all sorts of private institutions, and I do not believe there are individuals raising a hue and cry about it. These doctors are employees of a jesuit school, catholics pay them to work in a catholic school. I doubt, that, an employee of General Motors objects to GM logos in the workplace.

The Boston Herald ran an informal internet poll, 94% of 3804 responses found no cause for disapproval. The tail wants the dog to wag.

I went to a catholic grade school, which, at the time of my graduation, catholics were a minority; they were soon to be a rarity. I had fellow classmates, whom, objected to religion class. Some classmates were taught anti-catholic propaganda and bigotry at home. Some shared their thoughts with me. At Boston College it is mostly professorial staff that have objected. Most catholic colleges and universities hire non-catholics, there are schools ran by other faiths that demand signing statements, that guarantee religious conformity, and they are not restricted to theology faculty. Catholic schools have been guilty of being overly accommodating, not under accommodating to non-catholics.

Many people have religious objects in their homes. What guest has the right to object ? how many have the gall to do so?