Sunday, August 11, 2013

No Muslim Parking

The owner of a strip mall in Spring, Texas is apparently responsible for posting very hateful signs on areas of ingress to his strip mall. The mall, containing both store chains and small business owners, is across the street from a mosque.
 
It being the end of Ramadan, Muslim mosque-goers have been going to mosque with more frequency than usual, and apparently making use of parking spaces available across the street.
So hateful computer-generated signs have appeared. Here is video from local news coverage
Did you hear that last sentence? The owner will be checking the property to “ensure that no more offending signs” appear at his strip mall (a surety if it was he, himself, as I suspect, posting the signs) but also warning that he will be calling a towing company to tow cars that “shouldn’t be in the lot.” This being the original intent of the hate signs – and what primarily points to the signs’ origin.
Now I know what the mosque-goers were technically a nuisance to shoppers, but here is the thing: would you ever expect a strip mall owner to post “No Christian Parking” signs outside his mall parking lot? ? I know for an absolute fact that Christians use shopping area parking when they attend church, yet have never seen or heard of these signs
 If in the remotest possibility, a mall owner did post signs protesting Christian parkers, how long would it be before the mall owner was called an atheist or a devil worshipper?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

On the other hand, if there wre a Baptist church next door and they posted signs that read "No Baptist Parking" during a church festival, I think most folks would recognize it for what it was -- a poorly phrased effort to maintain spaces for shoppers.

Was it the wrong thing to put on the signs? yeah -- but not so wrong as to merit the publicity or criticism it has gotten.

Hal said...

Forgetful of the fact that the standard signage for this matter goes something line "Parking for Shoppers of [insert name here] Mall only. All others will be towed."

Message delivered without direct reference to a religious group that is the object of local hate groups in Texas.

It got the publicity it deserved.