Posted on 05/16/2019 5:26:14 AM PDT by rickmichaels
During the 2014-2015 school year, a Christian teenage girl was forced to recite the Islamic conversion creed — the Shahada — in writing for her 11th-grade class. She was also taught that "Most Muslims' faith is stronger than the average Christian." The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) sued the school responsible, and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled with the school. TMLC appealed to the Supreme Court, filing a Writ of Certiorari on Monday.
"Under the guise of teaching history or social studies, public schools across America are promoting the religion of Islam in ways that would never be tolerated for Christianity or any other religion," TMLC President and Chief Counsel Richard Thompson said in a statement. "I’m not aware of any school which has forced a Muslim student to write the Lord’s Prayer or John 3:16: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'"
"Many public schools have become a hotbed of Islamic propaganda," Thompson argued. "Teaching Islam in schools has gone far beyond a basic history lesson. Prompted by zealous Islamic activism and emboldened by confusing court decisions, schools are now bending over backwards to promote Islam while at the same time denigrate Christianity."
"We are asking the Supreme Court to provide the necessary legal guidance to resolve the insidious discrimination against Christians in our public schools," he concluded.
In Wood v. Arnold, the parents of Caleigh Wood, John and Melissa Wood, are suing Charles County Public Schools in Maryland, the county board of education, and Evelyn Arnold and Shannon Morris, principal and vice principal of La Plata High School.
TMLC noted five specific pro-Islam teachings that the 11th-grade teacher told Caleigh Wood from the Powerpoint presentation she gave in class (the underlining is original): "Most Muslims' faith is stronger than the average Christian;" "Islam at heart is a peaceful religion;" Jihad is a "personal struggle in devotion to Islam, especially involving spiritual discipline;" "To Muslims, Allah is the same God that is worshiped in Christianity and Judaism;" "Men are the managers of the affairs of women" and "Righteous women are therefore obedient." (To be fair, the Powerpoint did mention jihad as a "holy war" as well as a personal struggle.)
According to the TMLC filing, Wood was required to profess in writing the statement that "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." This statement is known as the Shahada, the Islamic conversion creed. A person recites this declaration in order to convert to Islam and then prays and repeats it during the Muslim call to prayer. Wood said she sincerely believes that it is a sin to profess, by word or in writing, that there is any god except the Christian God.
Yet the school required her to write the Shahada and docked her points when she did not.
Her father also testified that his daughter and her classmates "were instructed that the Islamic religion is a fact while Christianity and Judaism are just beliefs." The teacher told students that the "Qur'an is the word of Allah as revealed to Muhammad in the same way that Jews and Christians believe the Torah and the Gospels were revealed to Moses and the New Testament writers," and that Muhammad was visited by the Angel Gabriel who proclaimed that there is only one true god.
While some instruction in Islam is certainly defensible, many of these teachings crossed the line into advocacy for Islam. Some are also just false. For instance, Muslims believe God directly revealed the Qur'an word for word. This is emphatically not the case with the Jewish and Christian scriptures, which believers say were inspired by God but written by humans in history. In fact, Christians consider the Gospels historical, journalistic documents recounting events the writers personally witnessed.
Claims like Islam being "at heart" peaceful, that Muslims have stronger faith than Christians in general, and that women should be obedient to Sharia (Islamic law that often requires them to wear head and body coverings in public or to stay home unless accompanied by a male relative) are extremely debatable.
While many Muslims reject Islamism — the idea that Sharia should be enforced by law — this radical Islam has deep roots in history, tracing back to Mohammed, who founded the first Islamic state. American freedom is compatible with many Islamic sects, but many more militate against it.
Muslims often follow their religious law more strictly than Christians, largely because Christianity is not a religion of law. This does not necessarily make their faith stronger.
The Fourth Circuit Court argued that this biased teaching did not violate the Lemon test for establishment of religion because the teaching of Islam was driven in part by a secular purpose, had the primary effect that neither advanced nor inhibited religion, and did not excessively entangle Church and State. If the teaching had not been biased in a pro-Islam direction, this may be defensible. After all, Americans should learn about Islam — just as they should learn about Islam and Judaism.
Unfortunately for the Fourth Circuit, previous court rulings kicking Christian prayer and Bible reading out of public schools suggest this teaching of Islam is also unconstitutional. TMLC, which almost certainly disagrees with the excising of prayer and Bible reading, used these legal arguments against the teaching of Islam.
TMLC cited Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), in which the Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored reading of the Bible was unconstitutional. "The pervasive religiosity and direct government involvement inhering in the prescription of prayer and Bible reading in public schools, during and as part of the curricular day, involving young impressionable children whose school attendance is statutorily compelled, and utilizing the prestige, power, and influence of school administration, staff, and authority, cannot realistically be termed simply accommodation, and must fall within the interdiction of the First Amendment," TMLC quoted from Schempp.
This citation shows that the Supreme Court "has forwarded a stricter application of the Establishment Clause" where "impressionable youths are involved."
At the time Schempp was decided, schools may have established Christianity to some degree. Yet since Schempp and similar rulings pushed the Bible out of public schools, Americans have lost out on the rich literary heritage and civic significance of the Bible. Religious literacy has reached dangerous lows, to the degree that journalists at America's newspaper of record, The New York Times, lack a basic understanding of Christian doctrine.
Americans should have a basic understanding of what the major religions claim, especially Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. These faiths have impacted history in important ways, and students should have direct access to their history and texts in the classroom.
Although I am a Bible-believing Christian, I learned the Shahada and have no problem saying or writing it. If there were a fair standard where schools taught all the major religious conversion creeds (including John 3:16 along with the Shahada), I think there would be no problem with requiring students to know them. Perhaps students could still get marks for alternate versions, such as writing "g-d" for "god" so as to avoid sin.
Yet current law restricts teaching about religion, on the theory that young minds are too impressionable and that schools teaching the Bible would constitute an establishment of religion. Perhaps in early elementary school this may have some merit, but at least in high school, students should gain a basic understanding of these things.
In any case, if the Supreme Court precedent prevents Christian prayer and Bible reading in schools, it should also prohibit this kind of skewed Islamic teaching.
Islam meets the lefts agenda Christianity does not.
Some Islamic authorities believe that when you pronounce the Shahada (I don’t know about writing it out), that you have legally converted to Islam and that it is legitimate to punish you for apostasy if you later deny the faith.
“Although I am a Bible-believing Christian, I learned the Shahada and have no problem saying or writing it.”
Thanks for confirming that you have no idea what the significance of saying and writing the Shahada is. This is the equivalent of forcing a Muslim student to recite the sinners prayer.
The dems are in control in MD and are willing to do anything to secure votes and money from m*slims.
This same thing was found in a public school history book a few years back.
It says allah was/is while saying Christians BELIEVE that Jesus was/is. Basically portraying islam religion as fact and Christianity as a belief.
When they decide what content is going to be in school books, a bunch of people gather down in TX and advocate for their own desires and beliefs. As usual these days, some opinions count more than others.
meh privilege etc
Prayer was strenuously purged from public schools...until islam came along post 9/11. Now it’s seemingly everywhere. Many schools actually have prayer rooms where muslims can call for death to the infidel.
That there is MORE than I ever saw in any of my secondary years of education. I would think this constitutes TEACHING religion, which does NOT belong in a public school...it belongs in the Church where the family/individual attends. Wondering more about the "teacher" here...
They try to take over rural areas where the school boards aren't flush with money, so they can topple them and gain control. This was the technique used to remove Christianity from schools and town halls in small towns across the country. Then, having established a legal precedent on the cheap, they can push over the larger cities.
That was the purpose of Obama's "community survey" funded by Census Bureau taxes some years ago — to identify all Christian, Republican, conservative or majority white communities for political overthrow. What they have been doing to the small but historic city of Hagerstown, for an example from rural Washington County, is a sin.
Islam meets the lefts agenda.......................until it destroys the left...................
“Forced?” I wouldn’t do it at gunpoint. Give me an F so that I can use that paperwork to burn your entire department to the ground.
While eating bacon bits.
Imagine what would happen in a Muslim country to a school of christianity that forced a muzzie to do the same? That church/school would be in ashes and littered with decapitated corpses. And of course our “main stream media” would carry the water and talking points of why it was “sadly justified and understandable...because it’s “their culture”...”
I just want to clarify, when I say “burn the entire department to the ground”, I mean that in a figurative legal sense, not literally. I’m not advocating setting anything on fire, that’s how islamics roll, not me.
It’s the ole “It’s frightful but we have to understand why they did this...” line of garbage that we’ve come to know and expect from the disgusting minimization/rationalization that the leftist media does. They’ve already been converted to islam, they might was well dress like it, break out their little rug 5 times a day, and go to a mosque that smells like a stadium bathroom.
Things will get serious when they start going after hog farmers.
Yet another Christian girl is raped by Islamists.
The ONLY History about "i slam" Children need to know is that the Crusades shouldn't have been stopped, IT'S NOT A religion IT'S A MURDEROUS CULT, they have been MURDERING non-i slams for thousands of years, they will continue to MURDER ALL non-i slamers until they have been ERADICATED FROM THE EARTH AND they were the cause of the 9/11/2001 Attacks MURDERING 3000+ INNOCENT PEOPLE !!!
The Children also need to watch videos of The MURDER OF Daniel Pearl, AMERICAN CONTRACTORS that were BURNED AND HUNG FROM A BRIDGE IN IRAQ and Thousands of pictures of AMERICAN WARRIORS MURDERED AND INJURED PERMANENTLY BY IED'S and VBIED'S.
We must stop sugar coating these terrorscummurderingchildmolestinggoathumpingpos and their cult following ways !!!
FIXED IT !!!
simply write the Lords prayer and tell them if they don’t like it, your parents lawyer and the schools lawyer can do lunch...
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