Thomas More Law Center Fights Islamic Indoctrination In Public Schools
Posted on December 29, 2005
The ACLU pride themselves in maintaining that “wall of seperation” between religion and government. They push the line often enough into a realm that many think is downright censoring of religious expression, such as a student led prayer at a graduation. While there are grey areas, where we can all debate these controversial issues, there should not be a double standard. There are reasons that many people believe the ACLU does not hate religion, only Christianity. When it comes to Christianity in the public schools, the ACLU’s outcry can be heard the loudest. When it is Islam in the public schools, the ACLU’s silence speaks volumes.
Richard Thompson, chief counsel for Thomas More, points to what he calls an obvious double standard.
“While public schools prohibit Christian students from reading the Bible, praying, displaying the Ten Commandments, and even mentioning the word ‘God,’ students in California are being indoctrinated into the religion of Islam,” he told WND on filing the lawsuit. “Public schools would never tolerate teaching Christianity in this way. Just imagine the ACLU’s outcry if students were told that they had to pray the Lord’s Prayer, memorize the Ten Commandments, use such phrases as ‘Jesus is the Messiah,’ and fast during Lent,” he added.
According to Thompson, “Although it is constitutional for public schools to have an instructional program about comparative religion or teach about religion and utilize religious books such as the Bible in courses about our history and culture, the Byron Union School District crossed way over the constitutional line when it coerced impressionable 12-year-olds to engage in particular religious rituals and worship, simulated or not.”WND
A double standard is in play here for sure. There is no outcry from the ACLU and the secularists. Why?
The Law Center says that for three weeks, “impressionable 12-year-old students” were, among other things, placed into Islamic city groups; took Islamic names; wore identification tags that displayed their new Islamic name and the star and crescent moon; handed materials that instructed them to ‘Remember Allah always so that you may prosper’; completed the Islamic Five Pillars of Faith, including fasting; and memorized and recited the ‘Bismillah’ or ‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,’ which students also wrote on banners hung on the classroom walls.
Students also played “jihad games” during the course, which was part of the school’s world history and geography program.
In December 2003, the San Francisco court determined the school district had not violated the Constitution.WND
The Thomas More Law Center, and the parents involved are asking the Judge to reconsider. This case will most likely end up on appeal, and land at the infamous 9th Circuit Court.
“This is the court that said, in the ‘Under God’ Pledge case, that the mere expression ‘One nation under God’ [recited in a public school] violates the Constitution,” said Thompson. “It will be very interesting to see how they deal with this Byron School District case where students are basically required to become Muslims for three weeks!”
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Helping third-graders become anti-war
I missed the story of the Madison, WI elementary school (reg. req.) where teachers gave third graders an assignment to write letters to their congressmen and media outlets urging an end to the war in Iraq the first time around, but Frontpage has a g…
I read this
“… On earth peace, good will toward men.”
Those words of the angels and heavenly host appear in the 14th verse of the second chapter of the book of Luke. It is part of the traditional Christmas story we all know so well.
I still think of the manger in Bethlehem, the baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and all the other characters when I hear those words. But I also think of one of the strangest Christmas stories I have ever heard.
It is a World War I story, from Dec. 25, 1914, when British and German troops manned trenches just yards apart on Europe’s Western Front.
For a seemingly endless period of time, the two armies had been confined to those trenches, to the mud, the cold, the illness, the death that existed there. They fired back and forth, maiming and killing for some political cause of which many of them had little knowledge. They were merely soldiers fighting a war created by their governments.
But on that Christmas Day in 1914, something strange happened. The fighting stopped.
There are a lot of different accounts of what happened. One of the best is a book by Michael Jurgs, “The Small Peace in the Great War.” Another was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.
These accounts tell us that the men were so close, they could talk back and forth, and each side was aware that the other was receiving gifts from home — especially food. One of the German officers had a birthday on Christmas Eve, and there were cakes for him, one of which somehow was slipped over to the British trenches. It carried a request that there be a cease fire so the Germans could celebrate with the officer.
The British complied and sent back some tobacco, according to one of the accounts.
On Christmas Day, the men came out of their trenches and met in no-man’s land. They traded food and other gifts, and there was even some entertainment.
And in the middle of all of this, there were several soccer games between the two sides. Only hours before they had been shooting to kill each other. Now they traded Christmas gifts and played soccer on the friendliest of terms in the spirit of Christmas.
Then when the day was over, they went back to their respective trenches and went back to war, although there was a long period of no fighting in some areas along the front.
Eventually, the full hell of war returned. The men went back to existing in the squalor of the trenches and going about the business of killing each other.
What a unique story. It shows that given the opportunity, people can bring peace in the worst of situations. Would that we could play a soccer game that would never end, one that would bring the warring factions of the world — not only countries, but political parties within countries — to a single field with no weapons and with no political goals.
Would that all the players in that game could relive the spirit of Bethlehem, could feel the love of that first Christmas night, and could hear the angels say once more
“… on earth peace, good will toward men.” And let’s add “toward ALL men.” Let this be our Christmas prayer.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Don Bolden is editor emeritus of the Times-News.
In reading this I had to respond in hopes of being heard!
I read your editorial on “A Different Christmas Story” What a wonderful story! I was unaware of this story and when I heard it in the lyrics of a song over Christmas I thought they were just that, lyrics.
For many reasons I felt awfully alone this Christmas. I truly believe that it is because there are so many who would rather “rally the cause” than truly “love one another”. What I mean by this is that even if the person doesn’t believe in Christ and the true reason for Christmas, they are the very ones on the front of the picket lines screaming “Make Love Not War”. They would rather worry about Whom we Americans place first during the Holidays and how it offends them than live up to what they are the first to scream during war times.
I was watching “House” last Tuesday night and the writers of that show hit the nail on the head- House was in the Chapel watching a hand held TV when a Nun came in to pray. Anyway they got on the subject of Jesus and he was lambasting the Nun regarding the 7 sins. Well long story shorter, House was somehow “offended” and the Nun’s statement was “How can you be offended by something you don’t even believe in?”
WHAT A WONDERFUL STATEMENT!!! So for all of those who want to take Christ out of Christmas, for those who are advocating Love not War and then raise their hand for every single cause that goes against peace on earth and good will toward men, for those who feel they have been offended because McDonalds displayed “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” on their marquee sign. Let us ask-How can you be offended by something you don’t believe in?
Let those of us who do believe carry on our traditions, let us praise God every day of the year! Christmas, Easter, INDEPENDENCE DAY-Folks you need to recognize. Those of you who want equality for everyone need to realize that we Christians are part of the equation. We are Americans, We are as free as the next American and that includes Our Freedom of Religion. Carry on as you wish we will leave you be but would like the same courtesy regarding our beliefs.
See you at the soccer field!
Karen
Snow Camp, NC
Man… Is it time to finally separate school and state, and put these controversies to rest, once and for all????
[...] Courtesy of Stop the ACLU: [...]
There is a great deal more to the accounting of trench warfare during WWI. It was not just a Christmas truce. It was not simply troops on both sides becoming overwhelmed by Christmas spirit. And it was not simplistic altruistic benevolence.
According to political scientist Robert Axelrod, in “The Evolution of Cooperation”, it was cooperation through reciprocity. Simply put, Tit for Tat.
Read in Axelrod’s book the following:
Tony Ashworth’s, book length study of the live-and-let-live system used in trench warfare is based on diaries, letters and reminiscences of trench fighters.
Here are some excerpts from Ashworth’s accounting.
“If the British shelled the Germans, the Germans replied, and the damage was equal: if the Germans bombed an advanced piece of trench and killed five Englishmen, an answering fusillade killed five Germans. (Belton Cobb l916, p. 74.
“It would be child’s play to shell the road behind the enemy’s trenches, crowded as it must be with ration wagons and water carts, into a bloodstrained wilderness…but on the whole there is silence. After all, if you prevent your enemy from drawing his rations, his remedy is simple: he will prevent you from drawing yours. (Hay 1916, pp. 224-25)
“We got to go out at night in front of the trenches…The Germans working parties are also out, so it is not considered etiquette to fire. (Greenwell 1972, pp. 16-17)
“I was having tea with A Company when we heard a lot of shouting and went out to investigate. We found our men and the Germans standing on their respective parapets. Suddenly a salvo arrived but did no damage. Naturally both sides got down and our men started swearing at the Germans, wwhen all at once a brave German got on to his parapet and shouted out, “We are very sorry about that; we hope no one was hurt. It is not our fault, it is that damned Prussian artillery.” (Rutter 1934, p, 29)
These trench war combatants did not stop the war, however they spontaneously developed a system of cooperation that kept casualties, their own and the enemy’s, at a minimun.