A recent post at Feminist Mormon Housewives brought up the topic of appropriately accommodating diversity of beliefs in a family setting.  The author’s sister-in-law had a Muslim husband who of course didn’t celebrate Christmas and didn’t want his children celebrating Christmas, but the sister-in-law still wanted to celebrate Christmas with her extended clan, and so what ended up happening was that the sister-in-law brought her little family to the big family Christmas gathering and celebrated Christmas herself while her grumpy husband and disappointed children stood around and watched everyone else open presents and have fun.  Seemed odd to me.  I think if you’re a Christian married to a Muslim and you agree to have your children raised Muslim, maybe you shouldn’t celebrate Christmas so conspicuously yourself.  Do we get to hear our children cry so infrequently that we must make gratuitous efforts to have them do so?  I don’t know. 

Anyway, in the comments the author said that historically her family has bent over backwards to celebrate Christmas in as Muslim-friendly a way as possible, e.g. not singing Christmas carols, so as not to offend the Muslim husband.  (I think they even fasted when Christmas fell during Ramadan, or something like that.)  Someone else commented that their atheist relative had similarly ruined Christmas for them by being snide and grumpy and impatient with any expression of religious faith.  That seemed excessive to me.  If I were visiting people of a different religious tradition during a major holiday, I would not expect them to modify–or abandon–their rituals to suit me.  Actually, I don’t think that behavior seems excessive.  It’s patently offensive and unreasonable any way you slice it.  Some people should just stay home on Christmas.  The world would be a better place.

But all of this discussion reminded me of a recent series of letters in the Ask Amy column about a couple who were non-religious and took umbrage at their religious relatives praying out loud before a meal in their (the non-religious couple’s) home.  The couple had no problem sitting respectfully through a prayer at their relatives’ home(s) but thought that their own home should be their secular castle, as it were.  People responding to the original letter had vastly different opinions, and I wasn’t sure how I would rule on this if someone wrote to Ask the Giraffe with a similar issue.  Our family prays before eating in our home, but we don’t take the reins of mealtime ritual in other people’s homes. 

As a teenager, when I ate at my Catholic friends’ homes, everyone did the sign of the cross before saying grace.  Well, everyone but me, because a) I could never remember what you did in what order (this was before I learned the spectacles-testicles-etc. mnemonic) and b) it seemed, I dunno, silly for a Mormon girl to fake Catholicness.  But I certainly bowed my head respectfully and remained blissfully unoffended by a ritual gesture I didn’t happen to be practiced in.  When I eat with friends who don’t, for whatever reason, say any prayer before eating, I don’t feel a need to do so myself.  But perhaps I’m overly laid-back in this regard.  It wouldn’t be the first time.

My husband says that when he was a missionary, this business of praying in public before eating was an issue because Mormon missionaries are so conspicuous to begin with.  If you pray aloud over your Big Mac, people think you’re some kind of exhibitionist.  If you don’t pray at all, people think you’re a hypocrite (or whatever).  So for them the happy medium was to make this ambiguous gesture which involved putting your hand to your forehead and closing your eyes for about 1.5 seconds.  They called it the Missionary Headache.  It could mean whatever you wanted it to mean.  Silly Mormons.  It seemed to work for them, though.

I’m sure other people of various religious bents feel obligated to pray before mealtime and would be upset if asked specifically not to pray.  I can’t really imagine having someone over to my house and then, when they start to pray, saying, “Hold it right there, bucko!  Not under my roof!”  Unless they had to be naked or pick their noses or something while they were praying–that I might have to factor in, I don’t know.  Anyway, I don’t like confrontation, so if a guest got out her crystals and lit incense before eating, I wouldn’t think to object.  (If she had to sacrifice an animal, I’d probably ask her to do it on the patio.)  But still…it seems somewhat impolite to insist on your particular prayer ritual at the table of someone who has made it clear that they don’t share your beliefs and aren’t comfortable with the attendant practices. 

What do you all think?