The Savage Republican

A ruling out of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this week has a few tongues wagging. The same court that said saying "one nation under God" was unconstitutional has said that requiring students to pretend that they were Muslim is A-OK.

"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."

OK - this was in a "World Religions" class, but I wonder just how the class handled Christianity.

"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. "

Now, we are starting to have a problem. What do we know about the teacher?

"The ed consultant's name is Susan L. Douglass. No, she's not a Christian scholar. She's a devout Muslim activist on the Saudi government payroll, according to an investigation by Paul Sperry,"

Let me see if I have this straight...we have an Islamic activist, teaching our kids how to be "Muslim" in a World Religions class that doesn't deal (as much) with other world religions? I wonder how the school would respond to a youth pastor requesting equal access? Do you really think that request would be honored or even taken? Would they even allow him/her onto the grounds to submit the request? Somehow, I highly doubt it.

This was in a 7th grade classroom. I have a child about to enter the 7th grade. I will be keeping a very close eye on any classes remotely resembling a "World Religions" class and heaven help the teacher that tries this on my child. Because I will take it all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary. We either keep ALL churches/religions out of the schools or we allow them all in. Allowing only ONE in and leaving the rest as poorly covered as this school did is tatamount to the school ENDORSING one religion over another in strict violation of the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution!