Brooklyn Pool That Reserves Women-Only Hours Sparks Controversy

[Purveyor]

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — A New York City municipal pool that maintains female-only hours so that Hasidic Jewish women can swim with no men present has raised alarms among critics who say the accommodation to a particular religious group violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

But defenders say the women-only swim sessions at the Metropolitan Recreation Center in Brooklyn give women whose community separates the sexes a rare chance to exercise.

“Why deprive them?” said New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat who represents a heavily Orthodox Jewish district in Brooklyn.
Really, you’re not taking away from anyone else.”

The rec center in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood has apparently kept women-only pool hours since the 1990s, but the practice only came to the attention of the wider public when someone complained about it to the city’s Commission on Human Rights.

Commission spokesman Seth Hoy said it received an anonymous tip “a few months back” that the indoor pool might be violating the city’s human rights law, which bans sex discrimination in public accommodations.

more...

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/06/06/brooklyn-pool-that-reserves-women-only-hours-sparks-controversy/

[JimDandy]

1. Religions that impose personal religious restrictions on their members

must be the ones to provide the means to support those restriction, NOT the taxpayers. The Hasidic community needs to provide it's own swimming pool so their female members can swim without the presence of males. The same with the Islamic communities and any other religigious communities that supress their members.

[JanMichael]

2. do they allow atheist women? if not them fuck them. nt

[jberryhill]

3. It's okay, they're not Muslim

[LibDemAlways]

4. A taxpayer supported public swimming pool should not be

catering to the religious teachings of any group. The women in question should seek out a privately owned pool and reach an agreement with the owner that allows them to swim with no men present.