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A Colorado high school student quit the school choir after an Islamic song containing the lyric "there is no other truth except Allah" made it into the repertoire. James Harper, a senior at Grand Junction High School in Grand Junction, put his objection to singing "Zikr," a song written by Indian composer A.R. Rahman, in an email to Mesa County School District 51 officials. When the school stood by choir director Marcia Wieland's selection, Harper quit. "I don’t want to come across as a bigot or a racist, but I really don’t feel it is appropriate for students in a...

When Shehlla Khan's husband became ill, it fell on her to take their three children to the pool. But for Khan, who is Muslim, the task was difficult. The Columbia resident said she was concerned about people watching her swim in the conservative, cover-all dress required by Islamic dress codes, and thinking: "What's wrong? Why can't you take it off?" So Khan, 39, brought the issue up with members of her Dar Al-Taqwa mosque in Ellicott City. The mosque, along with members of a faith-based county group, People Acting Together in Howard, met with the Columbia Association to create a...

(Reuters) - U.S. officials have met members of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, a U.S. diplomat said, after Washington announced it would have direct contacts with Egypt's biggest Islamist group whose role has grown since U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

Via Daily CallerIn an effort to get closer to the local population, American female soldiers stationed in Afghanistan are being encouraged to wear a Muslim headscarf when interacting with civilians. But some question whether the practice constitutes cultural sensitivity or a form of appeasement that is degrading to U.S. soldiers. Major Kyndra Rotunda, executive director of the Military Law and Policy Institute and AMVETS Legal Clinic, told The Daily Caller that while the women are not being ordered to wear the head scarf, encouragement is tantamount to a demand[...] Retired Col. Martha McSally, whose grievance about being forced to wear...

One of the most effective ways to overturn a culture is not to take it on directly, but to undermine it gradually. If you carry out a full-frontal assault on majority opinion, people become alarmed and fight back. But when you do it slowly, step-by-step, you can make your destruction look harmless... even reasonable. That's exactly what's happening in this country. For the past half century, there has been a slow but unrelenting attack on the Christian foundations of the United States. The evidence is beyond dispute. First, secularists took prayer out of the public schools, because it "promoted religion...

In its devotion to Islamic outreach the Obama Administration has become the first to dispatch a U.S. Attorney General to personally “salute” a Muslim group’s efforts to fulfill the “nation’s promise of equal justice and opportunity.” Addressing a San Francisco-based organization (Muslim Advocates) that urges members not to cooperate in federal terrorism investigations, Attorney General Eric Holder said he is “grateful” to have it as a partner in promoting tolerance, ensuring public safety and protecting civil rights. ... “Muslims and Arab Americans have helped build and strengthen our nation,” he pointed out. They have also been “absolutely essential in identifying...

A University of Colorado student who started wearing hijab after converting to Islam is fighting the Boulder County Jail's insistence that she remove her headscarf for a booking photo, saying that to do so would violate her religious beliefs. Maria Hardman, 19, of Boulder, reported to the jail Wednesday to do the paperwork for a two-day work crew sentence that was supposed to be served this weekend. But when a jail detention officer told her to remove her headscarf for her mug shot, she balked. "It's stated in the Koran in two or three places that believing women should wear...

Developers of the controversial Park51 Islamic community center and mosque located two blocks from Ground Zero earlier this month applied for roughly $5 million in federal grant money set aside for the redevelopment of lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11th, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. The audacious move stands to reignite the embers of a divisive debate that dominated headlines surrounding the ninth anniversary of the attacks this fall, say people vested in the issue. The application was submitted under a “community and cultural enhancement” grant program administered by the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment...

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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma Muslim has filed a federal lawsuit against a state ballot measure that prohibits state courts from considering international law or Islamic law when deciding cases. Muneer Awad, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma, filed the lawsuit Thursday, saying it is unconstitutional. The ballot question was approved in Tuesday's election with 70 percent of the vote. The lawsuit seeks a temporary retraining order to block the results of the election from being certified on Nov. 9. Joseph Thai, of the University of Oklahoma College of Law, says there is no danger of...

Rocco Landesman is the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Boy, does he know how to spin the official line on offensive art. In a recent interview in Cincinnati, he was asked vaguely about controversy. "The best art taps into deep feelings, sometimes to comfort and sometimes to confront. Art can be very uncomfortable," Landesman said. "That can lead to strong reactions. For some of us, it draws us into the arts over our lifetimes and careers. For others, it creates strong negative feelings." Landesman wasn't being asked specifically about negative feelings over the Loveland Museum Gallery in...

Remarks by the President at a DSCC Dinner in Rockville, Maryland October 18, 2010 8:03 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: ... I want to, before I begin, just say that, Maryland, you are graced with two of the finest senators in the United States Senate in Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin. (Applause.) We are so proud of them. Everything that I've been able to accomplish over the last couple of years has been because I had these great partners. And these are two of the best partners, and they were also wonderful colleagues when I was in the United States Senate....

The Washington Times is reporting that Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, the Army's deputy chief of staff in charge of personnel matters who spoke about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" before several hundred troops at the European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, said: "Unfortunately, we have a minority of service members who are still racists and bigoted and you will never be able to get rid of all of them...But these people opposing this new policy will need to get with the program, and if they can't, they need to get out. No matter how much training and education of...

“When you sell a man a book you don’t sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue – you sell him a whole new life.” - Christopher Hurley That famous quote by Hurley is exactly what many on the Texas school board are afraid of. Will our young people get “a whole new life” that ignores the dangers of Radical Islam? The recent uptick in the culture war over the Islamization of America has led some teachers and school boards to look much more closely at what we are teaching about Islam. A few weeks ago, we at...

My organization, Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), just released a video showing 6th graders from Wellesley, MA as they rise from prostrating themselves alongside Muslim men in a prayer to Allah while on a public school field trip to the largest mosque in the Northeast. Teachers did not intervene. Parents have not been told. embedded by Embedded Video YouTube Direkt The video was taken inside the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center – Boston’s controversial Saudi-funded mega-mosque – during a Wellesley Middle School social studies trip to the mosque, ostensibly taken to learn about the history of Islam first-hand....

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has expressed a willingness to ban protesters from burning the Koran as the modern day equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater.The Supreme Court has ruled burning the American flag in protest is protected speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution.Breyer spoke to George Stephanopoulos on ABC's Good Morning America today:But Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told me on "GMA" that he's not prepared to conclude that -- in the internet age -- the First Amendment condones Koran burning.“Holmes said it doesn’t mean you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theater,” Breyer...

The United States government in no way condones such acts of disrespect against the religion of Islam, and is deeply concerned about deliberate attempts to offend members of religious or ethnic groups. The embassy wants to emphasize that we strongly condemn the offensive messages, which are contrary to U.S. government policy and deeply offensive to Muslims especially during the month of Ramadan. President Obama made clear in Cairo in his speech on June 4, 2009 that he considers it part of his responsibility as President to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they occur. And during his recent Iftar...

The Obama Administration’s taxpayer-funded Islamic defense program has been quite busy this week, filing several discrimination lawsuits on behalf of Muslims in different parts of the country and holding Justice Department meetings to discuss prosecuting “anti-Muslim hate speech.”The legal actions come on the same week that the White House and various federal agencies—including the Department of Homeland Security—hosted a special workshop to provide members of radical Islamic groups with direct access to U.S. government funding, assistance and resources. Read all about that here. Now the administration is flexing its legal muscle in its ardent quest to befriend the enemy. A...

Editor's Note: Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author of "God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World," is a regular CNN Belief Blog contributor. By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN In a commentary on the shrill Republican silence in the face of the "Obama is a Muslim" nonsense, Slate’s John Dickerson wrote that "with so much traffic on the low road in American politics, you'd imagine a politician or two might take the high road simply to beat the congestion." Well, New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues to take the road less...

DEARBORN, Mich. -- A Michigan high school football team is holding preseason practices in the middle of the night to help its Muslim players practice both faith and football. The predominantly Muslim squad from Dearborn says the nocturnal regimen is a way for players to eat and drink while observing the holy month of daytime fasting known as Ramadan that started last week. The August heat also played a factor in Fordson High coach Fouad Zaban's proposal to reverse the clock for a week of two-a-day practices. Cutting practice wasn't an option at football-crazy Fordson, which is coming off a...

I want to thank everyone who has ever replied to my random questions soon I'll post some actual articles with my ramblings for now another question: The ACLU has always argued that the government needs to stay out of religion. They have sued many times in Florida in relation to that because of school employees praying with students. Democrats also like to argue a whole "separation of church and state" yet the first amendment doesn't say that, last I checked. Now we have this Mosque problem in New York and their mayor, government official, is pushing for it's creation. Does...

SOUTH BRUNSWICK — As a Muslim growing up in East Brunswick, Atiya Aftab missed classes and had to make up school work to be with her family on two important holidays: Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, and Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice. As a mother of three in South Brunswick, Aftab has seen her children go through the same thing. Until now. In a decision that sent ripples of hope across the Muslim community well beyond New Jersey, the South Brunswick Board of Education has approved school closings in the...

CNN has an interesting roundtable on the case of Jennifer Keeton, who has sued Augusta State University to keep from getting expelled for not repudiating her statements about homosexuality. Keeton expressed her biblical perspective on the subject in and out of class while working toward a degree in counseling, and the school mandated a “remediation plan� that appears to have required her to renounce her Christian doctrine in order to gain a diploma from the school. The school has responded that a bias against homosexuality would disqualify Keeton from certification, a position that would put most Christians in Keeton’s position.Does...

A stupid New Jersey judge has attempted to use Sharia law to uphold a Muslim husband’s “right” to rape a teenage girl forced to wed him in an [arranged marriage. Taking the view that married women are the chattel property of their husbands, the judge (whose name has not been published by the old media) denied the validity of New Jersey’s charges because the rapes were committed within the period in which the couple was married. Allowing the man’s Islamic [beliefs to exonerate him, the judge remarked, "This court does not feel that, under the circumstances, that this defendant had...

NASA’s new job: to lift the self-esteem of Muslims worldwide? (Click here to watch this edition of the Hicks File on PJTV.) Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat down — again — with President Obama to discuss U.S./Israel relations. Obama told the Israeli leader that the bond between the two countries is “unbreakable.”Nice words from Obama, but the historic bond between the U.S. and the state of Israel has been shaken to it core by the Obama administration’s new “even-handed” policy toward events in the Middle East.The most recent insight into the mindset of the Obama presidency is...

A lawmaker in Michigan is calling on the state attorney general to investigate the arrests of four Christians at a recent Arab festival in the city of Dearborn, saying they were just "engaging festival goers in conversation about religion on public property."The call comes from state Rep. Tom  McMillin, who has introduced a resolution to that effect.His concern is over the arrests of four people during the Arab Festival in Dearborn, where police have been accused of enforcing Islamic law.The officers arrested the Christian missionaries and illegally confiscated their video cameras, which were being used to record the events, according to the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., which is representing the...

From a Nexis search a few moments ago: Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program in the New York Times: 0. Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program in the Washington Post: 0. Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on NBC Nightly News: 0. Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on ABC World News: 0. Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on CBS Evening News: 0. If you were to receive your news from any one of these outlets, or even all of them together, and you heard about some sort of...

"To boldly go where no kuffar has gone before"Having surrendered to the manned space program to China and Russia in his own version of rocket propelled dhimmitude, Barack Obama has given NASA a new mandate: massage Muslim self-esteem. H/T Weasel ZippersObama gave NASA adminstrator Charlie Bolden three goals: One was that he wanted me to re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, that he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim...

Tax-free charitable gifts along with federal grants and loans have been used to turn a section of South Philadelphia into an Islamic enclave. Universal Companies -- the charity established in 1993 by the artist formerly known as Kenny Gamble -- has spent $1.6 billion to promote Islam much of it in the 800 block of South 15th Street, according to Paul Williams , Ph.D, of FamilySecurityMatters.org. The neighborhood now has a mosque and an Islamic charter school and tough-looking security guards on corners in kufis . Gamble and Leon Huff are the founders of Philadelphia International Records and wrote some...

The web site Favstocks.com has published what amounts to propaganda for the financial jihadists. In an online article published on July 1st, the site “explained” “Islamic investing,” touting it as “socially responsible.” This affords us a teaching moment. We will go through the various aspects of the article and deconstruct the propaganda:

“RELIGION,” a sheet from English class, handed out to eighth-graders, is provocatively titled. The typewritten paper presents some 20 quotes that can be described as anti-God, coming from philosophers from Kierkegaard to Schopenhauer. Even a “Yiddish proverb.” “Religion is a disease, but a noble disease,” reads the first quote, attributed to Heraclitus. “Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they will think,” reads one by Schopenhauer. Another sheet, titled “GOD,” asks kids to ponder whether religion should be treated as poetry — neither true nor false. Angry parents want to...

The Obama administration has announced its appointment of 13 White House fellows – and the first person featured on its short list is a Muslim attorney who specializes in Shariah-compliant transactions. "This year's White House fellows are comprised of some of the best and brightest leaders in our country," Michelle Obama said in the June 22 announcement. "I applaud their unyielding commitment to public service and dedication to serving their community." White House fellows spend a year as full-time, paid assistants to senior White House staff, the vice president, Cabinet secretaries and senior administration officials. Samar Ali of Waverly, Tenn.,...

Three Christians Arrested by Dearborn, Michigan Police during Muslim Outreach Shouts of ’Allahu Akbar’ as Christians arrested By Mark Ellis, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News ServiceDEARBORN, MICHIGAN (ANS) – Three Christians were arrested Friday evening at the Arab International Festival as they shared their faith with Muslims. The three were arrested by police as they engaged in intense, but respectful dialog in which they proclaimed their faith in Christ. “I never thought I would see this in America,” says Steven Atkins, a resident of Toronto, Canada, who was visiting the festival and observed the incident.The three arrested include Dr. Nabeel Qureshi,...

DENVER -- As if travelers weren't already freaked out by a 32-foot tall blue stallion with fiery eyes, now a towering statue of the Egyptian god of the dead is welcoming fliers at Denver International Airport. Workers erected a 26-foot tall, seven-ton replica of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the dead, on Wednesday. The blue and gold statue gazes into the main terminal to promote the King Tut exhibit that opens June 26 at the Denver Art Museum. Anubis stands not far from the rearing blue "Mustang," an often derided artwork branded "Bluecifer," "Satan's Steed" and "Blue Devil Horse" by...

Today's textbooks indoctrinate our children into Islam and are backed by court rulings allowing teachers to REQUIRE our children to bow down and pray to Allah "in demonstration." As Obama's non-jihadists plot to "internally cleanse" America shouting "Allah-Akbar," many of our children have simultaneously taken the position on their hands and knees and recited, "In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of Creation, The Compassionate, the Merciful, King of Judgment day! You alone we worship, and to You alone we pray for help, Guide us to the straight path." Public outrage has caused...

This will make every Conservative parent’s head spin! A student expressed her conservative beliefs during a conversation on the school bus about abortion, gay marriage and Barack Obama. The school bus driver, Betty Campbell, overhears the conversations and launches a full on attack at the child saying she was a, “stupid, little bigot!” “If you can’t believe in tolerance towards one another, you don’t belong here. You belong in a parochial church school!” http://www.kcci.com/video/23680243/index.html Later the bus driver dropped the children off at their homes and actually CAME BACK to the child’s home and took her onto her bus to...

WASHINGTON – The federal government is financially supporting and officially embracing a radical mosque in the Washington suburbs that is directly connected to al-Qaida and the 9/11 attacks as well as other terrorism. The Census Bureau has signed a two-year, $582,000 lease with Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, where top al-Qaida recruiter Anwar Awlaki ministered to the Pentagon hijackers and the Fort Hood terrorist as a mosque leader. Meanwhile, the State Department is taking diplomatic trainees on tours of the large Falls Church, Va., mosque, while featuring it in a video as a model depiction of Islam in America – even...

Barack Obama administration’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated, or admitted, The cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops that come to me and say, 'We want you to pass immigration reform,' and I said, 'I want you to speak about it from the pulpit. I want you to instruct your' -- whatever the communication is…The people, some (who) oppose immigration reform, are sitting in those pews, and you have to tell them that this is a manifestation of our living the gospels. Now, just what is Nancy Pelosi doing prescribing to cardinals, archbishops and bishops what they are to preach from their...

The project of a community center /mosque is being proposed by two organizations, the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) and their sister organization, the Cordoba Initiative. This past Wednesday night they made their presentation to the Community Board of lower Manhattan (CB1). Twelve people sit on the board and would you like to guess what the final vote was? Get ready to grab a barf bag … the 12 members voted unanimously to support the project. Yes, it's not a typo, it was unanimous, all were in favor and, to give you an idea of how excited the board...

US President Barack Obama speaks at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. Obama has announced a string of new educational and entrepreneurial exchanges with Muslim nations, in a bid to honor his promise to forge a new beginning with Islam.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama laid a key plank of his strategy to mend ties with the Islamic world on Monday hosting a summit to boost economic development in Muslim nations. In a step the White House hopes will help shift relations beyond decades of talk about terrorism and conflict, Obama brought entrepreneurs from 50 countries to Washington for two days to spur economic ties. The president pledged to host the meeting in a landmark speech in Cairo last June, when he also called for a "new beginning" to relations between the United States and the Muslim world....

Christians are rightly concerned that extremists have turned Earth Day into “Worship-Earth Day.” Just listen to a few of these suggestions for Earth Day 2010 that some of the more radical groups are proposing: taking down “global eco-criminals” like Exxon-Mobil; having school kids meditate about the Spirit of Life (that’s “Spirit of Life” with capital letters); seeking international cooperation on reducing the human population; or working for, and I quote, the “ultimate, inevitable, and necessary dismantling of industrial civilization.” We Christians certainly do not want to be yoked with new agers, neo-pagans, or folks who just downright hate humanity. But...

Satirical animated TV show "South Park" beeped out the words Prophet Muhammad and plastered its Wednesday episode with the word "CENSORED" after being issued a grim warning by a U.S. Muslim group. The irreverent comedy show on Comedy Central also substituted a controversial image seen last week of the Prophet Muhammad in a bear outfit with one of Santa Claus in the same costume. It was not immediately clear if the move was a bid to tread carefully following the warning against the "South Park" creators, or if they were poking fun at the fuss.

A Tennessee father told his son’s school board they need to ban a biology textbook because of it's ‘bias’ against Christians. Kurt Zimmermann is appealing a Knoxville school district's decision to keep the book. He says the textbook used in his son’s biology class cites creationism as a "biblical myth." According to reports, he requests, 'non-biased' textbooks be used. In his words, the current textbook's phrasing misleads, belittles and discourages students in believing in creationism and calls the Bible a myth.

Perpetuating the mythology of hateful and racist Tea Party zealots, United Church of Christ and United Methodist officials are attacking the demonstrators outside the Capitol who protested the March 21 vote for Obamacare. “I have been watching the activities of the Tea Party for months curious about their underlying motives,” intoned the Rev. Geoffrey A. Black, president of the 1.1 million member United Church of Christ. He condemned Tea Party demonstrators for having “spit upon” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) and having “shouted names that we have not heard in the public square since the days of the Civil Rights movement,”...

Officials in the city of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., who had ordered participants of a home Bible study either to purchase an unobtainable city permit to meet or shut down, now are relenting a little. City officials have said the Bible study targeted earlier for banishment can continue to meet, but they are reserving the right to shut down other Bible studies...

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, March 29, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, the prestigious former president of the University of Notre Dame, may have helped swing a critical House Democrat vote to the "yes" column after House Speaker Pelosi asked for his help, reported the LA Times and the Associated Press last Tuesday.  The South Bend Tribune confirmed the report on Friday. Hesburgh was called in to persuade U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) to vote for the health care bill despite the vast expansion of abortion funding embedded in it. Donnelly had been a member of the group of Democrats led by...

A student play depicting Jesus Christ as the “King of the Queers” will be performed tomorrow morning at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas and the citizens of the small mostly Christian town steeped in cowboy culture are none too pleased about the situation.

Just days before Christians worldwide commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus, a college student's production of a play depicting a Christ-like character as a homosexual is infuriating local residents who plan to protest this weekend's event. "Corpus Christi," written by Terrence McNally, is the Tarleton State University project for student director John Jordan Otte, a 26-year-old homosexual who also says he's Christian.