By Wade Coggeshall
Hendricks County Flyer (Avon, Ind.)
INDIANAPOLIS
October 05, 2007 02:05 pm
—
It’s only a preliminary idea right now, but it’s sure causing a lot of controversy.
Indianapolis International Airport is considering installing two floor sinks — one each in the men’s and women’s restrooms of the taxi staging area in the new terminal scheduled for completion next year.
Many of the taxi drivers at the airport are Muslim. As part of their religion, they’re required to pray five times a day. Some of those prayers fall during the work day. The washing of feet is part of that ritual. Taxi drivers at the airport are known to use hand sinks to carry out their prayers.
“It really creates a safety and health problem,” said David Dawson, spokesman for the new terminal project.
That’s where the floor sinks come in.
“In designing this new facility, the designers looked for a way to deal with this known behavioral situation,” Dawson said.
The sinks would probably cost about $600 each to buy and install. Dawson doesn’t have concrete numbers because officials haven’t settled on any specific design or model. There’s no guarantee the sinks will even be part of the new terminal.
But that’s not stopping public protest. A citizens rally in opposition of the foot-washing sinks is planned for 11 a.m. Saturday at Hope Baptist Church, 1055 N. Girls School Rd. Several church leaders, including Marc Monte, a senior pastor at Avon’s First Baptist Church, will lead the remonstration.
It’s widely believed the foot sinks would be paid for with taxpayer funds. Dawson says that’s not the case. The new terminal, he says, is funded through airport user fees. Indianapolis International does get some federal aid, but that goes to safety equipment like a control tower.
“The airport project receives no state or local appropriations from taxes,” he said.
But Monte says they’re still “using taxpayer-funded space that would include utilities, and really supporting what could be described as a Muslim shrine at the airport.”
His church uses a tank to fully immerse a person in water during Baptism.
“If I were to push the Airport Authority to install a Baptistery tank and allow me to publicly Baptize converts, I think there’d be incredible opposition,” Monte said. “And of course the taxpayer would wonder why in the world we’re allowing this.”
He also calls the safety issue cited for installing the sinks “lame.”
“Bathroom floors do get wet from time to time,” Monte said. “And if it’s so important for them to wash their feet five times a day — which most psychologists would regard as obsessive-compulsive behavior — what they need to do is purchase property adjacent to the airport, build a building, and conduct their foot-washing there. It is a free country and they could do that. It does not have to take place on public property.”
Dawson points out the taxi staging area, where the sinks would be installed, is away from the main terminal and only used by taxi drivers, not the general public. As for the sinks potentially acting as a shrine to Islam, “We don’t see it that way,” he said. “It’s an approach to deal with a known situation, and it’s really entirely independent of who believes what.”
Shariq Siddiqui, executive director of the Muslim Alliance of Indiana, says the local Muslim community didn’t ask for the sinks, but is happy they may be offered. He’s heard the tax money excuse as reason for the opposition, but doesn’t think that’s what’s driving it.
“I think it’s because it’s something that would benefit Muslims,” he said. “The primary reason behind the debate is Islamophobia.”
The taxi drivers these foot sinks are for, Siddiqui says, are Americans. They live here, work, pay taxes, and harm no one.
“The issue we need to deal with is this issue of intolerance — hatred for those we don’t know,” Siddiqui said. “For someone to lump American Muslims with a few crazy people out there is not correct.”
Monte counters, “The word ‘Islamophobia’ is a word used to paint people who, for political and cultural reasons, oppose the encroaching of Islam in our society. We’re not Islamophobics. In fact we love Muslim people and want to see them trust Christ as their savior. However, as Americans and as Christians, we reject their religion and culture as antithetical to everything our culture stands for. The two are not in agreement.”
Saturday’s rally, Monte says, is “not a matter of hating Muslims, but it is a matter of what’s fair is fair. For 60 years Christians have been pushed out of the marketplace of ideas in America and increasingly removed from the public arena. This is an outrage. Caving in to the desires of this group, really in order to further legitimatize them, is dangerous.”
It’s up the Airport Authority Board to ultimately decide whether to install the foot sinks.
“What we have here is one proposed approach to handling this situation,” Dawson said.
For more information on the rally, call Hope Baptist Church at 244-8491.
Wade Coggeshall writes for the Hendricks Copunty Flyer in Avon, Ind.
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