I took comparative religions in my NYC public high shool.
And yes we had Bibles (I even brought in the libretto from the the Broadway show Jesus Christ Superstar (ok it was the early 70s!). We had Korans (but no muslim students that I was aware of), and discussions about the Talmud, and variations of the bible, schisms in Christianity and things I don’t remember from eastern religious as well as LDS because I remember we did have a Morman student. We read passages from these religious texts and discussed them.
I never said that instruction about world religions had no place in a well-rounded PUBLIC school education. But it should be done when the students are old enough to have some grasp of thier own religion, if they are being raised in any particular faith, and it cannot ever have the appearance of proselytizing.
Being that we are at war with fanatical religious extremist (and my 18 year old son shipped out two days ago) some insight into these fanatics is not a bad idea. And we should realize that not all Muslims are trying kill/eliminate or convert us. At least the other two members of my bowling team, the 18 & 19 year old Yugoslavian Muslim cousins weren’t.
Oh I don’t know, the Jewish family that came to our Christmas celebration every year, had NO problem with their holidays being ignored in PS. They got off all their holidays and ours too. Loved our Christmas buffet. “Just like on the Soap Operas”, was stated more than once.
Here is my thought on it. Christmas is a national holiday, based on our Christian history. I’m quite proud of that and I think it should be celebrated in PS.
If you want to celebrate something else, be my guest. Volunteer at your kid’s school and teach them the songs and lesson plans. Otherwise, you don’t really care do you?
And if you really don’t like that Christmas is celebrated in a school that is mostly Christian, do what I do, homeschool. I just put the menorah away and got Christmas dinner.
I’m not convinced that a comparative religion course is appropriate for minors. I definitely do not agree with the Quran being brought in absent other religion’s documents and beliefs.
While I agree with you that every Muslim is not a security threat, I don’t support the pie in the sky view that none of them are either.
There’s also the “oh he was a good neighbor” factor too. Before some of these folks “go off”, you just don’t know who is and who isn’t a potential threat. Of course that’s how it is with all people who commit crimes. Still, we do have a potential mass casualty situation with Islamic adherents, that generally wouldn’t be the case with others.
At this time, I believe every Islamic adherent is due increased scrutiny. I don’t support mistreatment, but I don’t believe we should be completely naive either. I’m not saying you are BTW.