Parents Angry London Becoming ‘Mid America’ After School Bans Watching Eclipse For Religious Reasons

Parents are angry after a local London primary school banned students from watching this week’s solar eclipse for “religious reasons.”

Children at North Primary School in the Southall suburb of London spent time studying about solar eclipses, and the night before  this past week’s eclipse made pinhole cameras at home. But many students, mostly 4 to 11 years old, and their parents were angered when, at the last minute, the children were prohibited from watching the eclipse they had been waiting and preparing for.

Why?

“The school made this decision when we became aware of religious and cultural concerns associated with observing an eclipse directly,” Ivor Johnstone, headteacher of North Primary School, told parents.

Johnstone did not elaborate what “religious and cultural concerns” there were, but The Telegraph reports “some Hindu scriptures say that an eclipse makes believers impure,” and “fundamentalists believe that they need to bathe immediately after an eclipse and chant the name of God to overcome the forces of darkness.”

Southall is known as Little India and has a relatively large Hindi population.

Parents are furious.

“I am outraged – is it going to be Darwin next? We will be like mid America,” Phil Belman told The Evening Standard. “I am extremely upset about it.”

“My child went in having spent an hour preparing and making up her pinhole camera. This is an issue about scientific matters versus religious superstition.”

Children were allowed to watch the eclipse on TV.

In America, WND (World Net Daily), a far right website that caters to the Christian right fringe, published an article about the eclipse quoting pro-Israel Christian Bob O’Dell. “This is likely a message from God to the entire world,” O’Dell said. 

The article quotes others religious figures who variously called the eclipse a warning to the people of Israel, England, and Sweden.

And other American Christian pastors called it “a sign of judgment from God to those on Earth,” or “the apocalypse.”

 

Image by Cyberslayer via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: The Telegraph