{"id":1618,"date":"2009-02-21T10:00:55","date_gmt":"2009-02-21T18:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=1618"},"modified":"2009-02-21T10:00:55","modified_gmt":"2009-02-21T18:00:55","slug":"on-a-hard-to-reach-library-shelf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/on-a-hard-to-reach-library-shelf\/","title":{"rendered":"On a hard-to-reach library shelf"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/newstopics\/religion\/4687077\/Bible-put-on-top-shelf-in-move-to-appease-Muslims.html\">Per the Telegraph<\/a>, some Muslims in Leicester, U.K., <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>moved copies of the Koran to the top shelves of libraries, because they believe it is an insult to display it in a low position.<\/p>\n<p>The city&#8217;s librarians consulted the Federation of Muslim Organisations and were advised that all religious texts should be kept on the top shelf to ensure equality. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So far as I can tell, most Christian viewpoints do not assign any particular value to placing the religion&#8217;s scriptures in a physically elevated location, and many would assign a positive value to making the texts accessible, which might be in tension with top-shelf placement. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Robert Whelan of the Civitas think-tank told The Daily Mail: &#8220;Libraries and museums are not places of worship. They should not be run in accordance with particular religious beliefs.&#8221; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And a spokesman for Engage, &#8220;which encourages Muslims to play a greater role in public life&#8221;, pointed out that there is no reason libraries should feel obliged to treat Christian and Muslim scriptures in a precisely equal way if believers take different views as to what constitutes respectful treatment. <\/p>\n<p>Speaking of libraries, I&#8217;ll take this opportunity to suggest that readers visit my other site, Overlawyered, to check out my ongoing coverage of <a href=\"http:\/\/overlawyered.com\/tag\/cpsia\/\">CPSIA<\/a>, the dreadful new federal law that is encouraging used <a href=\"http:\/\/overlawyered.com\/tag\/cpsia-and-books\/\">book sellers<\/a> and even <a href=\"http:\/\/overlawyered.com\/tag\/cpsia-and-libraries\/\">libraries<\/a> to discard pre-1985 children&#8217;s books on the ground that some unknown percentage of them contain infinitesimal admixtures of lead in their ink and pigments. I wrote up the issue at the Manhattan Institute&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/city-journal.org\/2009\/eon0212wo.html\">City Journal<\/a>, and Daniel Kalder at the Guardian (U.K.) contributed good coverage <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/booksblog\/2009\/feb\/20\/kalder-childrens-books-lead-panic\">yesterday<\/a>. I&#8217;m happy to report that virtually every strain of conservative opinion, <a href=\"http:\/\/heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/CPSIA\">religious<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popehat.com\/2009\/02\/18\/all-the-news-thats-fit-to-wait-no-one-told-us-there-would-be-reading-involved\/\">secular<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/crunchycon\/2009\/01\/the-coming-ban-on-thrift-store.html\">traditionalist<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/pintpundit.com\/?p=636\">libertarian<\/a>, seems to be united in agreement that this very bad law needs to be stopped now; its remaining defenders include Congressional potentate <a href=\"http:\/\/overlawyered.com\/2009\/01\/cpsia-part-ii-at-forbescom\/\">Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/overlawyered.com\/2009\/02\/new-york-times-on-cpsia-needless-fears-that-the-law-could-injure-smaller-enterprises\/\">editorialists of the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Per the Telegraph, some Muslims in Leicester, U.K., moved copies of the Koran to the top shelves of libraries, because they believe it is an insult to display it in a low position. The city&#8217;s librarians consulted the Federation of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/on-a-hard-to-reach-library-shelf\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[33,50,158],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1618"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1623,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618\/revisions\/1623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}