So I'd have to assume this protest is based solely on the Religion of the school and students. And that just ain't right. All Muslims aren't terrorists.
And for arguments sake, what if this was a Jewish school, property and they were proposing a new school building and Synagogue? Would there be the same outrage? ... NO. Because in a heart beat the ADL would label all these folks anti-Semites. But since they're Muslims they're fair game and the torches and pitchforks are out.
There have been no classes held on this campus for a year, since ISA pulled the students out to their Alexandria (leased) building in anticipation of starting construction quickly. So the actual net change in students you're discussing is somewhere between 500 and 900 kids.
On a road that's notorious for traffic fatalities.
Would a responsible zoning board allow this in any other locality?
This expansion is something that people who live in the immediate vicinity oppose, and it's entirely for safety and development issues. The protest is not related only to the religion of the school.
(Though, as the Post points out, the school has been surrounded by controversy, since the GRADE SCHOOL textbooks they use contained fairly hefty amounts of "hateful" material.)
Regards,
Brian L.
Well, what you can’t see from the satellite view is the runoff problem in that watershed (and its impact on the domestic water supply there). I don’t buy into the entire argument, but the point is that any other entity or private individual wanting to construct anything larger than a picnic table gets very short shrift from the Fairfax powers that be. So in a weird way, you are right: this situation is based solely on the religion of the school and the students, that is, if it were any other religion, were it any other school, there is would be no way in hell Fairfax County would agree to grant an exception to the occupation density and water runoff rules that it has used to restrict land use there, beginning in the 1970s. The school has a track record linking it to terrorism and the teaching thereof going back quite a few years that even the Associated Press has been unable to ignore. It isn’t paranoia — nor is it xenophobia — when they really do want to kill you. And to answer your other question, Christian schools have been turned down cold when they wanted to locate in Fairfax County, or to expand. Someone told me, and I can’t vouch for this, that the reason the school was sold to the Saudis in the first place was that it was unable to expand. The fix is in with the Fairfax County board of supervisors because they have been bought and paid for by political donations from Muslims. And one of the major beneficiaries of this buying of local government with Saudi money is the former supervisor who is a now a member of Congress.