"Vouchers Anyone? Judge OKs Role-Playing as Muslims in School"

ChronWatch.com ^ | December 12, 2003 | Jim Sparkman

[veronica]

It's difficult keeping up with the new trends in education in our public schools. We have role-playing by students as gay and lesbians so they will really understand what it's like. And, there are courses demonstrating how to put a condom on a cucumber. Very practical stuff nowadays in lieu of the Three-Rs. Then, a federal judge rules its OK to have the students role-play as Muslims.

This story is by Bob Egelko, in the S.F. Chronicle.

A federal judge says a Contra Costa County school was merely teaching seventh-graders about Islam, not indoctrinating them, in role-playing sessions of a history class that called for students to adopt Muslim names and recite language from prayers.

In a ruling announced Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton dismissed a suit by two Christian students and their parents who claimed the use of role-playing at Excelsior School in Byron during the 2001-02 school year amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of Islam.

During the course at the middle school, teacher Brooke Carlin, using an instructional guide, told her students that they would adopt roles as Muslims for three weeks. She said she stressed that the exercise was only a role- playing game to teach them what Muslims believe.

She encouraged them to use Muslim names, recited prayers in class, required students to recite a line from a prayer and made them give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during Ramadan. On the final exam, students were asked for a critique of elements of Muslim culture.

That was all within constitutional bounds, Hamilton said, because the purpose was educational, not religious, and students engaged in no actual religious exercises or demonstrated "any devotional or religious intent.''

She noted that the state requires all seventh-grade world history courses to include a unit on Muslim history, culture and religion.

What's next, you ask? Well, how about a role-playing sesssion whereby the students pretend to be suicide bombers. After all, it's important for the students to understand how the bomber feels about his role, and why he hates Jews and Americans enough to do it.

What's not next? Well, there will be no role-playing of Catholics or Jews or Baptists. That's for sure.

[freeangel]

Then, muslims won't mind role playing for their Jewish and Christian "brothers and sisters" and I would certainly demand that as taxpayers as being the equitable solution to this problem. Let's see how many muslims adhere to this line of education and can be found in attendance.

[putupon]

I got suspended once for bringing firecrackers to school.

[veronica]

I can tell you that if my kid was forced to do this I would yank him/her out of the school so fast his/her head would spin. Home-schooling or private school is the only way to go now.

[JOHANNES801]

I git suspended for three days in 69 for smoking my pipe in the parking lot.Nothing was said about the 30cal. rifle in my car,it was deer season in central PA. I spent my three days off hunting,had to work at night tho.

[PaxMacian]

Baptism and Communion roll playing
coming soon to your public schools.

[PaxMacian]

"required students to recite a line from a prayer and made them give up something for a day"

What kind of idiot does it take not to realize that prayer and sacrifice are the most fundamental aspects of religious practice? Moreover, prayer as delineated by the Koran and the Bible are fundamentally antithetical. "Requiring" a Christian child to pray from the Koran is undoubtedly unconstitutional and certainly vile.

[ml/nj]

the state requires all seventh-grade world history courses to include a unit on Muslim history

I wonder if they get to this.

ML/NJ

[ml/nj]

Judge OKs Role-Playing as Muslims in School"

Do they use real swords?

ML/NJ

[ImpBill]

According to the article the suit was brought by two "Christian" children and their parents.

Only two? There is a great part of the problem.

Even bigger was that the article reported them as "two Christian" ... implying that only Christians have a problem with the schools ipso-facto endorsement of a real minority and insidious philosophy calling for the conversion or DEATH of all nonbelievers.

Where was the outcry from 80% of the students and their parents, Christian or not.

While the battles may not be over ... we (America) has lost.

[ImpBill]

"we HAVE lost". that read real ugly "we has lost". ug

[Papabear47]

I do not think that ANY judge would have found it permissible for the students of 1945 to role play the rape of Nan king,Burma death march,Nazi SS work in the death camps. Today however it seems not only agreeable to these morons,it is mandatory.As long as it distorts real history and confuses the student....I have made more horrendous flubs than that one.

[Carry_Okie]

I have been told by several Muslims that, according to their theology, if a person merely says the words, "there is no other G*d but Allah and Mohammed is his profit" (deliberate changes), that no matter how cynically it is said, even with no intent whatever to truly acknowledge Allah as such, THE SPEAKER IS THEN A MUSLIM AND BECOMES SUBJECT TO SHARIA LAW. Thus, those proceedings may not have been INTENDED by the schools as religious rites, but those whose religion is being discussed do so regard it. Any Christian or Jew who understood that should properly regard it as sacrelige, not mere cultural education. One could either consider it a form of government enforced sacrelige against those who hold other faiths (for which the government has no power to prevent their option to refuse the proceeding via the free exercise clause) OR it is in fact a Muslim rite that has been misrepresented. In either case, as far as Muslims are concerned, those kids have subjected themselves to a religious rite that has placed their lives in either spiritual or physical jeopardy and certainly has no place in a public school.

IMHO, they are being set up. If all American kids have somehow "magically" (thank you NEA) said these words, then Muslims, knowing that, have a basis for passing judgment and executing punishment. America will have thus been put into a position of being forced to fight Islam to the death.

If this fact was not made a key point of the original case against the school district, then the way it was prosecuted is beyond incompetent. It is, in my opinion, a major failing of American law that such pertinent facts cannot be added for consideration upon appeal.

[Dog Gone]

It is, in my opinion, a major failing of American law that such pertinent facts cannot be added for consideration upon appeal.

If you could bring in pertinent facts on appeal that were known at the time of the trial, but not introduced, then it would become a deliberate tactic. No judgment would ever become final, because the losing side would introduce another piece of evidence to keep the cycle going.

[Carry_Okie]

If you could bring in pertinent facts on appeal that were known at the time of the trial, but not introduced, then it would become a deliberate tactic. No judgment would ever become final, because the losing side would introduce another piece of evidence to keep the cycle going.

As it is we get bad judgments that become precedents that take decades to undo. At this point, I would take continuous refinement and a series of expensive appeals over what can be deliberately bad law.

An example is when agencies and NGOs pop into court over a case they have set up between them and hand the judge a consent decree. They call it a "sweetheart suit."

[KC_for_Freedom]

She noted that the state requires all seventh-grade world history courses to include a unit on Muslim history, culture and religion.

Certainly this unit would include the other world religions, and a non-emotional review of what is happening in the name of these world religions.

Unfortunately, most of the teachers in the country are not prepard to cover these issues correctly, (It is more the province of a "World's Religions College Course".) I would need to know more about the tone and indoctrination that was going on in the classroom.

I went to school in Contra Costa county and our english teacher emphasized communism so much in her course that she was finally removed by the administration. That likely does not happen today.

I taught for ten years in the San Mateo High school district. If I were still a teacher in the district, I would teach a few lessons about the Muslim religion giving rise to a fanatic element that is responsible for much of the terrorism going on in the world today. I would have no problem admitting that many other religions have their share of fanatics, but they do not currently support terrorism. I would keep my personal religious beliefs out of the discussion. I wonder how long I would be allowed to teach?

[razorback-bert]

recited prayers in class

Gee, I thought that no prayers were allowed in school. Did I oversleep and miss a court ruling?

[WOSG]

This is why we need vouchers. Let parents vote with their (kids) feet when this cr*p happens.

And I dont for a moment mind if my kids learn *about* Islam. But this indoctrination of anything anti-Christian is too much.

[Avoiding_Sulla]

I have been told by several Muslims that, according to their theology, if a person merely says the words, "there is no other G*d but Allah and Mohammed is his profit" (deliberate changes)*, that no matter how cynically it is said, even with no intent whatever to truly acknowledge Allah as such, THE SPEAKER IS THEN A MUSLIM AND BECOMES SUBJECT TO SHARIA LAW. [*smart move by CO so that he can't be said to have accepted sharia law by having written the phrase <G>]

This claim sounds plausible given that all it takes for a Muslim man to divorce his wife is to face Mecca and say three times "I divorce you."

It is well worth vetting out the truth of the matter. The judge just dismissed this case -- she didn't give it a final ruling that could have ramifications further on down the line in all jurisdictions. So the truth might prove useful to others who might choose to make such curriculum the subject of a legal challenge in another jurisdiction.

Also, how the Islamists would bring such a demand to force compliance in this country is another, nontrivial, matter. However, it does fit well with those who have a PC and/or statist agenda. "You will comply!"