Michigan Muslim decision

[Douglas Laycock]

         This is private speech; failure to regulate is not 
establishment.  The imam at least claims this is not even an exemption from 
some noise ordinance or the like; the loudspeaker was already legal and the 
amendment is clarifying.  If he is wrong about that and it is an exemption, 
of course the exemption would have to be sect neutral.  I think it should 
have to be neutral as between religious and political speech.  But it does 
not have to be neutral as between speech and other sources of noise.

         And of course the city does not have to broadcast Christian or 
Jewish messages; it need only refrain from interfering with them.  And I 
would be surprised if it has interfered with them.  Church bells are 
designed to be widely heard for the same purpose, they were not illegal in 
Hamtramck.

At 01:33 PM 5/13/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>I find the below message somewhat disturbing.  The thought of having 
>amplified Muezzins five times a day calling to prayers in my own 
>residential community is disturbing. My neighbors and I would be forced 
>repeatedly to talk over or stop our ears against intrusive chanted 
>messages from a faith we do not share.  I fail to see why a town 
>government in America, even one in which a majority of the population is 
>Moslem, should be allowed to impose religious harangues on the minority of 
>its residents who happen not to be Moslems.  It is true that these 
>harangues are customary in Islamic traditions, but it is the prayers that 
>are a pillar of Islam, not the calls to prayer.  Once having made such an 
>"accommodation," does the town then have to broadcast immediately before 
>or after each muezzin call the Hebrew chant, "Hear O Israel, the Lord thy 
>God, the Lord is one?"  Will an amplified shofar have to be blown five 
>times a day?  How about The Lord's Prayer?  And what noise will 
>accommodate the atheists?  Unless the atheists are allowed to summon their 
>listeners to reason at least five times a day, why isn't all this holy 
>racket an establishment of religion?
>
>
>
>At 08:07 AM 5/13/04, Stuart BUCK wrote:
>>An interesting law out of Hamtramck, Michigan.  It apparently amends the 
>>noise ordinance there to allow loudspeakers to broadcast Muslim calls to 
>>prayer 5 times per day.  Story here:
>>http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mosque6may06,1,4014143.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
>>or here:
>>http://www.freep.com/news/locway/call8_20040508.htm
>>
>>
>>Best,
>>Stuart Buck
>>
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Douglas Laycock
University of Texas Law School
727 E. Dean Keeton St.
Austin, TX  78705
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