Posted on 05/23/2006 7:23:36 PM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
A federal appeals court in California has ruled that public schools can require children to learn about religion...as long as the religion is Islam.
Investors Business Daily reports that the notorious Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled the state can require students to participate in "Muslim role-playing exercises." The exercises include:
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.Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . ."
The article also notes that:
In the California course on world religions, 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. In contrast, Islam gets a pass from critical review.
Based on the above, parents of some of the students sued, claiming that the public schools were unconstitutionally promoting religion, in violation of the First Amendment.
The court disagreed, however, ruling that the state was teaching another "culture."
The Ninth Circuit is widely considered "the nation's most liberal and oft-reversed federal court."
We can only hope this case is taken to the U.S. Supreme Court and overruled also.
How can it be considered anything other than a religion? It is not a 'culture' by any means at all. Arabs have a culture, Iranians a different one, Indonesians a different one yet. Islam is the religion of the majority of those people.
And because it is a religion, it should be absolutely, 100% forbidden to force students to make prayers to its lower case gee od.
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From the article:" Based on the above, parents of some of the students sued, claiming that the public schools were unconstitutionally promoting religion, in violation of the First Amendment.
The court disagreed, however, ruling that the state was teaching another "culture."
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Well there you have it. according to the the 9th circuit court Islam is not a religion. It is a "culture".
:)Easy Does It:)
This is one of the most disturbing things to come from the so-called 'most liberal court' in the country. They have to do contortions to deny Islam is a religion in order to justify their ruling - when it is such a blatantly unconstitutional decision. A public school simply cannot compel or coerse children to say prayers.
This has already been decided. See Lemon v. Kurtzman, Lee v. Weisman and Allegheny County v. ACLU. These latter two are particularly relevent.
Since the 9th court OBVIOUSLY KNOWS THESE SUPREME COURT CASES, they had to define Islam as a 'culture' in order to get around it - even though in the course of the teaching of this 'culture' the students are forced to recite prayers to a god they don't believe in!
I'm freaking astounded and I'm thoroughly angry about this. I hope the Supreme Court hands this case back to them, with their heads on the proverbial legal platter.
We must NEVER ALLOW ANY OF THESE IDIOTS ON THE 9th TO EVER MAKE IT TO THE SUPREME COURT.
Do the students also get to go to flight school?
Practicing Islam should be against the law. :)Easy Does It:)
Why don't people just tell their kids that they have permission to refuse to submit to this... Imagine what would happen if the majority of the kids just said "no".
Don't know why this story is out there now, since this appears to have happened last November or December. Can't seem to find any other notice of it. It appears that a single judge or a panel of judges rejected the appeal of a lower court, allowing the teaching to continue.
Anybody got anything else more recent on this?
I don't know how you can say it is a culture. You may think it is a false religion, a bad religion, etc.. But a culture? How? It has different sects, interpretations, holy men It has a god and prayers and holy books.
The standard in this case, in my opinion, is that the children are being required to say prayers to a god.
I would have no objections if they were asked to eat pita bread and falafels, wear robes and do belly dances. That is "culture". Even, perhaps, giving them rugs and showing them how to bow 'might' be construed as cultural if they were silent and not required to recite prayers from the Koran. But then the school would have to show how to daven and how to take communion, and how to do a rain dance, too. But saying prayers is religion and it's well defined in case law by the USSC. That is why the 9th had to call it a "culture" in order to circumvent the precedent.
Its totally bizarre since one would think that this so-called "liberal court" would have decided the other way, against prayers. I guess they want to force the USSC to define religion?
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