There's an Orthodox blog war brewing over the Emanuel school segregation situation. The Modern Orthoprax and Heterodox Blog v. Yaakov Menken and Yitzchok Adlerstein of Cross Currents Blog. Avi Shafran also has chimed in to join the debate.
The CC bloggers and Shafran defend segregation. One of these spokesmen says that the segregation of schools in Emanuel is totally okay because it is not really based on race, but wholly based on religion. People, they say, have the right to choose with whom and how to educate their child. They miss the point.
We oppose segregation on principle, not on rights. We think segregation is bad for society as a whole. We support the use of government authority and force to end it, whether in the past in the South of the US or in the present in the towns in Israel.
The author of the MOH blog focuses on the hypocrisy of the Orthodox positions on this issue. He misses the point. Those Orthodox who preach and practice segregation are wrong on principle.
Last time we checked, hypocrisy was not illegal or immoral. Everyone we know practices it to some degree at some time or other and in doing so breaks no known law.
Whether based on religion or race or wealth, segregation has been deemed illegal in many instances because it is immoral and because it weakens the fabric of a society.
That's not just our opinion. It is the law.
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