Tuesday, October 10, 2006

We’re All Muslims Now

From the Thomas More Law Center:

ANN ARBOR, MI - A three-week intensive indoctrination into the Islamic faith by a California public school district was allowed to stand by the U. S. Supreme Court last week. A California federal trial court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had earlier ruled that such indoctrination was constitutional.

The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, outraged by the obvious double standard in the application of the Establishment Clause jurisprudence by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has held “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, but allows this kind of Islamic instruction in public schools, had requested that the Supreme Court review the case.

The materials used by Byron Union School District seventh graders stated, “From the beginning, you and your classmates will become Muslims.” Students were instructed to accept as “fact” that Jihad is “a struggle by Muslims against oppression, invasion, and injustice,” and to accept as “truth” that the Koran “is God’s word as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.” Students were taught the five duties (Pillars of Faith) all Muslims must fulfill and were required to complete a project for each duty, including fasting, in order to pass.
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According to Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center, “This three-week course was for the most part propaganda that could be used to unwittingly recruit home grown terrorist. Nevertheless, some public schools are allowing this kind of religious instruction under the guise of diversity instruction.”

Impressionable twelve-year-old students were required to take Islamic names, wear identification tags that displayed their new Islamic name and the Star and Crescent Moon. Students also were handed materials that instructed them to “remember Allah always so that you may prosper,” and memorized and recited the “Bismillah” or “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” which students also wrote on banners that were hung on the classroom walls. Students also had to memorize parts of Islamic prayers and verses from the Koran.

Thompson continued, “No federal court would have permitted a class where public school students were taught to ‘become Catholics’ for three weeks, selected a saint’s name, wore identification tags that displayed their new name and a Crucifix, and engaged in Catholic religious practices. Here, however, students were subjected to Islamic religious indoctrination and propaganda and the courts turned a blind eye. The Supreme Court missed an opportunity to demonstrate that the Establishment Clause is to be applied the same to all religions and is not just a weapon to be used only against Christians.”

Edward L. White III, trial counsel with the Thomas More Law Center who handled the case, commented, “I am surprised the Supreme Court did not accept this case for review. The case presented significant issues of national importance concerning public school education and religious indoctrination of children.”

First I was a Democrat, then I was a Republican, and after they morphed into the Last of the Big Time Spenders, I grabbed onto the label which read Conservative. Now, where public education, taxes, and entitlement set-asides are concerned, I am a Libertarian with my back to a churning sea, a rising tide of destruction of all that I hold dear.

Is it time to start building the boats?

And if so, where to now?


Hat tip: Reader M. R.

7 comments:

What is "Occupation" said...

I just want to puke...

Cindi said...

People! Arm. Up.

Kevin Baker of The Smallest Minority said the courts are not going to save us and he is right.

The institutions put into place, in a written contract between the people and our government, to guard our God-given rights will no longer do so.

A mighty clash is coming and we must be our own defenders.

Don't depair, pray for strength.

Rob Spear said...

In some ways, America is worse off than Europe - Europe still has the historical sense of nationhood that gives the Scots or the Basques (or the English, maybe) the self-belief to stand up for their independence. This gives the Europeans the possibility of standing up to the EU, and schisming into myriad micro-states, which will of necessity be more responsive to their people, and give a better chance of expelling the Muslims.

America does not seem to have any equivalent emotional relation to anything local, except perhaps Texas. Movements for the independence of California, or Montana, or South Carolina will have a hard time convincing people to join.

Anonymous said...

The story you point out has been around for a few months. It demonstrates that for those whose children attend public schools with whacked out school boards and administrations need to remove their kids in favor of parochial schools or home instruction.

Cheers.

The Urbanophile said...

Why couldn't a Christian organization just adopt the exact same program and switch the lingo? Sounds like the courts have laid out a template for legally introducting religious training into the schools.

DWPittelli said...

The worst thing about such instruction:

All one has to do is SAY "there is no god but god and mohamed is his prophet" and then you are a moslem. So merely saying this is, to moslems, the same as baptism to a christian. Further, if one who has said this later says "no, of course I am not really a moslem" then he is risking death for apostasy.

I personally don't attach any theological meaning to saying such a thing, but I would pull my kids out of school for the whole 3 weeks, even if I had no alternative education plans. I would also inform the teachers and the school that if they get my kids to say any such thing, I would sue them personally, as well as the school district -- and I am not a litigious person.

Freedom Fighter said...

I send my children to private school for exactly this reason..though of course, I still am required to pay for public schools I'm unable to use.

President Bush could very easily have pushed through school choice federal legislation (vouchers), which over time

(a) would have endeared him and the GOP to millions of working and minority families

(b) been one of the single biggest boosts to American education standards in years

(c)fatally crippled a major Democratic party donor, the teacher's unions and

(d) prevented nonsense like the Islamic indoctrination above.

The fact that in 6 years he's chosen to do nothing on this says a good deal about him and his administration.

Pity.