U.S. Schoolkids to Practice Islam in Class

In California, the wall between church and state is crumbling.

The same court that found the phrase "under God" unconstitutional now endorses Islamic catechism in public school. ... California's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it's OK to put public-school kids through Muslim role-playing exercises, including:

• Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful..."
• Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: "Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger."
• Chanting "Praise be to Allah" in response to teacher prompts.
• Professing as "true" the Muslim belief that "The Holy Quran is God's word."
• Giving up candy and TV to demonstrate Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.
• Designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially "becoming a Muslim" for two full weeks.

Christianity is not presented equally. It's covered in just two days and doesn't involve kids in any role-playing activities. But kids do get a good dose of skepticism about the Christian faith, including a biting history of its persecution of other peoples.

By contrast,

Islam gets a pass from critical review. Even jihad is presented as an "internal personal struggle to do one's best to resist temptation," and not holy war.

You don't have to be a Christian — or an Islamophobe — to see what's wrong with this picture.

Parents sued the California schools where this goes on, citing the First Amendment's establishment clause. They have a point — it's hard to argue that the activities described do not add up to the government's endorsement of Islam. The court, astonishingly, begged to differ.

(Imagine for a second that a million ordinary schoolkids in Pakistan or Saudi-Arabia go through role-playing exercises including reciting Bible verses, professing as true the belief that Jesus is mankind's savior, et cetera. Won't ever happen.)

I don't believe that the Christian faith is under attack, as right-wing blowhards and the author of the above-referenced article keep intoning. But this multi-culti idiocy does give reasonable people pause.

Religious indoctrination of any kind has no place in public schools. I hope the parents pursue this all the way to the Supreme Court.

[via Dhimmi Watch]

Comments

[George Arndt]

It seems that both the far left and far right are both equal in their sanctimony. Separation of church and state applies to every religion, period.

Its ironic that anyone on the left should support this. Not just because it undermines separation of church and state, but Islam is no less a male dominated, sexually puritanical, homophobic, patriarchal belief system as Christianity.(if not more so) Throughout history, Muslims have engaged in religious prosecution, warmongering , imperialism, genocide and slavery no less than the West has.

The only silver lining here is that the program encourages skepticism towards Christianity.

Children should be taught to be skeptical of ALL Religion..

[Martin Owens]

Let's face it, the real reason behind this is the thrill of giving offense. Sure the cover story is understanding and toleration, but that could have been done in a dozen other, less offensive ways.

There is a certain breed of rotten punks, male and female, who get a gloating satisfaction out of insulting people under the rubric of teaching something or exercising ordinary liberties. And America's education wasteland is their happy hunting ground.

[Dawdy]

cali just gets weirder and weirder. i'm so glad i moved away.

[GreginOz]

"When I hear the word 'Religion' my hand twitches towards my Browning."