MYOB

One of my core tenets is "live and let live." If you don't bother me, I won't bother you. And I damn sure won't go out of my way to interfere with people who are doing just fine without my meddling.

Unfortunately, there are some people out there who just can't keep their nose out of other people's business.

The Pointless Case Against Catholic University

The Catholic University of America is, um, a Catholic university. So—surprise, surprise—its Washington, DC campus, like those of most other Catholic institutions of higher learning, has a lot of Catholic stuff around. Chapels, priests and nuns on the faculty, crucifixes in the classrooms, statues of the saints, and a gigantic church dedicated to the Virgin Mary...

As if the name itself wasn't a giveaway, a quick look at the campus - either in person on via the Internet - should reveal the university's Catholic nature. So it would be reasonable to conclude that anyone enrolling in Catholic University would know what to expect, right?

But nooo—the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights is currently considering a 60-page complaint alleging that Catholic's 122 Muslim students (out of a total student population, including graduate students, of just under 7,000) feel discriminated against because they are obliged to perform their daily prayers "surrounded by Catholic symbols which are incongruous with their religion." Those symbols include (according to the complaint) "a wooden crucifix, paintings of Jesus, pictures of priests and theologians which many Muslim students find inappropriate.”Particularly offensive (according to the complaint) is the basilica, which the complaint describes as a "cathedral that looms over the entire campus." The complaint faults Catholic University for not setting up a prayer room devoid of all Christian imagery where Muslim students can fulfill their religious obligations.

Surprisingly, the complaint did not originate from any of the Muslims currently enrolled at the school. It came, instead, from - what else - a lawyer who is on a crusade (ironic, isn't it).

Not a single Muslim student at Catholic signed onto the complaint, however, and when the campus newspaper, the Tower, interviewed Muslim students there, it was unable to find any with anything negative to say about the university's treatment of them. The complaint is actually the brainchild of John Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University (also in the District of Columbia) who has become more famous for his threatened litigation against institutions that he finds politically objectionable than for his teaching.

...  Banzhaf concedes that the facts might not support any legal claim that Catholic University is discriminating against Muslims—but he is counting on the Human Rights Commission of an ultra-liberal city to support his complaint anyway.  It might help if he could find a flesh-and-blood Muslim or two with some on-the-ground stories of bias. For one thing, the number of Muslim undergraduate, graduate, and law students at Catholic has more than doubled over the past four years, from 56 in 2007 to this fall's 122. Second, Catholic's Muslim students seem to have few complaints. One of them, Wiaam Al Salmi, told the Tower, "The community here is very respectful of other religions and I feel free to openly practice it."

So we have an outsider with no dog in this fight filing a complaint on behalf of a group of people who are quite satisfied with the status quo. Why do so many lawyers feel so compelled so often to meddle in things that don't concern them?

Shakespeare said it best: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

As an added benefit, 52 members of the U.S. Senate are lawyers, along with 148 lawyers in the House. And of course, the prez and his veep are also scum sucking sleazeballs lawyers. So if we take Willie's advice we'll have a great headstart towards improving this country in 2012.

(Note to any overly-sensitive law enforcement agencies. I am speaking metaphorically, not literally.)