Jewish HS basketball time gets restraining order to move tipoff time for game

[mrveggieman]

http://espn.go.com/dallas/story/_/id...ing-order-play

[duane1969]

The complaint says that the basketball team is "being denied, solely on account of their religious observance, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to compete in their athletic conference's state basketball championship tournament.

"That is an irreplaceable opportunity," the complaint said, "and its deprivation constitutes irreparable harm attributable to disqualification of Beren and its team because of their Jewish religious beliefs and observances."

Nobody was denying them anything. They were denying themselves the right to play based on their religious beliefs. If they were not willing to forego a few hours of Sabbath to play the game then they were placing their religion above the game and denying themselves the right to play in it.

[shrewsbury]

i would agree if they were in a public school, but private and parochial can and should observe religious practices.

[duane1969]

i would agree if they were in a public school, but private and parochial can and should observe religious practices.

OK, but they should also be aware of what the schedule is and comprehend that they need to make a choice and not expect/demand that the entire tournament be rescheduled to accomodate their needs.

[ensbergcollector]

i guess my bigger thought is why would the league not factor this into the schedule if they are religious schools in their tournament? It isn't like the sabbath is a once every 50 years type thing.

[mrveggieman]

I remember a few years ago during the ncaa tournament there was a big thing about if byu would have won their game they would had to play on sunday which would have went against their beliefs. BYU lost their Friday game so there was no sunday game but imagine the PR disaster if BYU would have won.

[shrewsbury]

OK, but they should also be aware of what the schedule is and comprehend that they need to make a choice and not expect/demand that the entire tournament be rescheduled to accomodate their needs.

kind of like the gay marriage thing, they should be aware of their sexual oreintation and not expect/demand that the entire country change things to accomodate them, but they do

[duane1969]

i guess my bigger thought is why would the league not factor this into the schedule if they are religious schools in their tournament? It isn't like the sabbath is a once every 50 years type thing.

Nah, Jewish Sabbath is like Christian church, same day every week. It starts just before sunset on Friday and ends just after sunset on Saturday. It is a day of rest, feast and religious observance where they are not supposed to perform any labor.

So any tournament that they enter will have to accomodate them by not having Friday night or Saturday daytime games. Considering every major high school sport has games on Friday night and Saturday I think it is kind of stupid for them to even be in sports if it is that big of an issue.

kind of like the gay marriage thing, they should be aware of their sexual oreintation and not expect/demand that the entire country change things to accomodate them, but they do

Touche

[Star_Cards]

I agree that they weren't denied anything do to their religious beliefs. The tournament wasn't telling them they couldn't play because they were jewish. I also agree that they more than likely knew that they could have games on the sabbath. That said, I think it's some what reasonable to be able to move their game so that they can play and still observe the sabbath.

I also see this as a pretty great sportsmanship lesson for teams in the tournament. I would hope that an opponent would be willing to help then out to reschedule a game to allow them to play.

I also see the other side that most tournaments are going to play on friday or saturday as those are just the typical times they are played and that sometimes it just wouldn't be possible to adjust the schedule so that they could still play if they can't play on friday or saturday.

[Star_Cards]

kind of like the gay marriage thing, they should be aware of their sexual oreintation and not expect/demand that the entire country change things to accomodate them, but they do

the difference is that if gays are allowed to marry, none of the straight people getting married or that have been married are going to be effected at all. their status don't change and they wouldn't be forced to change their wedding days because of a ruling that would allow gays to marry.

in this case, the issue is more about scheduling. If a tournament is on friday and saturday it's difficult to change the schedule to let a team play that can't play for a lot of both friday and saturday. although it's good that they were able to accommodate them.