FORT WORTH (March 5, 2012)--The boys basketball team from Beren Academy, an Orthodox Jewish school, fell short in its championship run after a semifinal game was rescheduled so it wouldn’t conflict with the Sabbath. Beren Academy lost 46-42 to Abilene Christian in the championship game Saturday night. Beren's semifinal originally was set for Friday night, but Beren students said that their faith prohibited participation during the Sabbath between sunset Friday and sunset Saturday. The Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, or TAPPS, initially rejected Beren Academy's requests to reschedule, but after several parents filed a lawsuit seeking to force TAPPS to reschedule the semifinal, TAPPS relented and changed the time to Friday afternoon. Beren Rabbi Harry Sinoff told the Houston Chronicle that making it possible for his school to play "was good for basketball." http://www.kwtx.com/_254sports/headlines/Jewish_School_At_Center_Of_TAPPS_Tiff_Loses__141453443.html
I think rescheduling the game sets a bad precedent. Everyone can say they don't want to play on so and so date due to religious beliefs and if they sue the state the state will give in. Money talks.
I don't know why people assume that some charlatan can make up a religion on the spot, claim an exception, and be given consideration by the government. TAPPS backed down because Judaism is an old, established and legitimate religion with a well-known and widely-accepted prohibition from working on the Sabbath and TAPPS would certainly lose in a lawsuit. If I ran a school and one day said we were Valdezene and needed all the cheerleaders to be topless or whatever, they'd kick sand in my face and laugh when I tried to sue.
being in TX, whenever i watch law in order it trips me out that a gov't office is closed because of a jewish holiday.
TAPPS stands for Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools. Do you know what parochial means? Why wouldn't they make such a simple religious accomodation?
What if you have 7 different religions involved and each one has one day of the week as their holy day? How do you schedule games?
Your question is divorced from reality so I have no idea. All they had to do was move the game earlier in the day. Not a big deal. I figured a question like this was coming.
So it's an association of Christian schools, they accomodate some non-Christian schools and allow them to participate, and then some of those schools force rules and scheduling based on their beliefs upon those who went out of their way to allow them to participate in the first place?
Good point, but do you think scheduling should be done around the respective religious preferences of the various teams? How far should this go? Should the NBA not schedule games on Saturday for a team if a Jewish player is on that team?
I would imagine he could just beg out of Friday night/Saturday games and the coach would play someone else. That doesn't really work when it is the whole team. Since there are several professional Israeli teams, someone more knowledgeable than me about Euro hoops could probably tell you if they are accommodated in this way.
So how is it determined which religions get their holy days taken seriously and which don't? Doesn't seem like it caused much of a problem in the article, but generally speaking we should be cutting down on that kind of preferrential treatment. Take a look at Iran as an example. Most people in Iran have tons of holidays because they have all the usual stuff, the Islamic stuff, plus the ancient zorastrian stuff and then there's the twelve Imams. They pretty much mourn the passing of every significant person in the religion/sect. I'm pretty sure they mourn the passing of Khomeini. Maybe they mourn the Prophet. All of these are days or weeks off. It's too disruptive.
