ACLU, CAIR target Christian group

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Friday, December 24, 2004

[JohnHuang2]

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

The ACLU and an Islamic civil-rights group are calling for investigation of the head of a private-school association who wrote a letter to a Muslim school applying for membership, asking why it would want to join a group that doesn't fit its beliefs.

In a two-page letter, Edd Burleson, director of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools, or TAPPS, asked the Houston school, Dar-Ul-Arqam, 10 questions, including its attitude toward "the spread of Islam in America" and the goals of the school "in this regard."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has demanded an apology and reprimands, calling the letter an "alarmingly intolerant and hostile attitude toward Islam and Muslims," the Houston Chronicle reports.

"The TAPPS letter, a symbol of religious intolerance, has no place in a nation that was originally built by those seeking asylum from such intolerance," said Iesa Galloway, executive director of CAIR's Houston office, in correspondence to the TAPPS board.

Dar-Ul-Arqam, with more than 300 students at three locations, already belongs to a local interscholastic association with grade-school and middle-school programs, but TAPPS would offer scholastic competition for the school's 19 high schoolers.

The school is under supervision of the Islamic Education Institute of Texas.

TAPPS membership includes 238 schools across the state, including many Catholic and Protestant institutions in the Houston area.

The ACLU of Texas is calling for an investigation, according to Alamdar Hamdani, a Houston member of the ACLU board.

Burleson's letter quotes a verse from the Quran calling on Muslims to be violent toward non-Muslims. He notes most TAPPS-member schools are Christian, then asks, "Why do you wish to join an organization whose membership is basically in total disagreement with your religious beliefs?"

He suggested some TAPPS members may not be tolerant of Muslims: "Why do you think that the current member schools of TAPPS will not be biased against your school, based on the fundamental difference in your religion and Christianity, since about 90 percent of TAPPS schools embrace Christianity?"

CAIR's Galloway said Burleson sent a similar letter to an Islamic school in the Dallas area.

Khaled Katbi, a representative of the Houston Muslim school, said he went before the TAPPS board Nov. 4 to seek membership.

Katbi was asked if the school taught from the Quran, and he said it did.

"Their questions were reasonable," he told the Chronicle. "I did not sense hostility."

One week later, however, Katbi received the letter from Burleson, which said the school needed to answer certain questions before it could be admitted.

Katbi said he was "astonished."

Burleson asked: "Do you teach your students to 'Make war on them (Christians and Jews) until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme' (Koran 8:37)?"

Katbi said he did not reply to the questions.

The Chronicle said the TAPPS bylaws do not indicate the assocation is restricted to Christian schools.

The ACLU's Hamdani said TAPPS would not be able to conduct itself that way if it accepted federal funding. The nonprofit association's website, however indicates its revenue comes from member dues and sporting-event fees..

"It's the venom in that letter that's so disturbing," Hamdani told the Houston paper. While the letter is structured as a series of questions, he said, "they're really more assumptions than questions."

Martin B. Cominsky, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the letter "assumes some offensive stereotypes about what Islam is all about."

Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR's national spokesman in Washington, D.C., said, to his knowledge, other Islamic schools have not encountered difficulties with private-school associations.

The letter reflects "the rise in anti-Muslim sentiment" since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he claimed.

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[goldstategop]

The ACLU and CAIR. Anti-Christian secularists and Islamic jihadists are truly birds of a feather that flock together in a common-minded assault upon America's Judeo-Christian culture.

[bahblahbah]

If those questions aren't asked and answered then they'll never be forced to reform and conform. Get out your Koran quotes and shove it in their faces at every opportunity.

[dk/coro]

You nailed it, partner! The Quran and follow-on teachings/refinements in Islam afford no opportunity for flexibility in accommodating to Western Civilization.

A close study of the Ottoman Empire and the reign of the Muslims in the Balkans up to WW-I demonstrates definitively the inflexibility of the Islamic civilization in its relationships with other cultures.

The Dutch and Swedes are at Battle Stations in the far-too-late awakening to this threat. Europe is gone; and the United States is in mortal danger from this well-disguised, but incrementally mortal threat to our Christian heritage.

[Beckwith]

“Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”

This was the sentiment of Omar M. Ahmad, the Chairman of the Board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR, as told at an Islamic conference held in Freemont, California, in July of 1998.

Now the ACLU has partnered with an organization whose Chairman openly advocates the overthrow of the government of the United States.

Anyone here surprised by this strategic alliance?

[spodefly]

CAIR and the ACLU will play the politically correct like a fiddle with their pharisaical BS.

[hershey]

Oh, those offensive stereotypes about Islam...such as stoning women to death, cutting off hands, getting up each and every morning with the sole aim of blowing Christians and Jews to kingdom come. 9/11 and thousands of innocents killed. Homicidal bombers, Bali, Israel on any given day...esp. before the wall went up, Spain's train bombings...the fact that the Koran has kept millions of Muslim believers in the Dark Ages for a thousand or more years, fostering illiteracy, hatred, lying, cheating, stealing. Golly, I don't know why we're worried about Islam and the maniacal hatred of democracy and individual freedom that they teach in schools. We should concentrate on getting Christ out of Christmas. That's the real evil. (Smoke coming out of my ears.)

[shekkian]

Can't we all just get along?

[mewzilla]

CAIR is the same group that thinks the crescents on outhouses were/are some sort of a racist plot.

[capt. norm]

The ACLU and CAIR.

Wonder how long it will be before they merge.

[Siamese Princess]

Wonder how long it will be before they merge.

Well, they have a common enemy -- Christianity.

[searchandrecovery]

The aclu is becomming more and more like Jesse Jackson every day. More and more people can see through their pc rhetoric to their actual agenda - elimination of Christianity (and traditional values (e.g. Boy Scouts) in America. Every time they play the "separation of church & state" card, or the "gay rights (e.g. marriage)" to bash American institutions they lose credibility.

Come to think of it, they seem to stand for all things extreme Democrats (which is to say socialists/communists) do: secularism, gay agenda, nea agenda (e.g. no Intelligent Design mention in school textbooks). They're like the jihad-lawyer wing of the Democratic Party. Hmmmmmmm...

[geedee]

“Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”

Now, now, Beck . . . one mustn't use facts to debate with those in the minority. That's "insensitive." Facts can only be used, or misconstrued, or plain lied about when one is attacking those in the majority. It's obvious you didn't get the memo from the ACLU. Shame on you.

[7.62 x 51mm]

ACLU = The Enemy Within™.

[TheDon]

Yep. The backlash is gonna be a b!tch!

[longtermmemmory]

I really wish we would do an investigation of CAIR. There is no way they are not in bed with terrorists.

As for the communist founded ACLU, we need to start finding a means of denying them attorneys fees and PR.

If anything ANY lawyer who is a member of the ACLU should be forced to disclose that fact to all clients and potential clients.

[Glock17]

"The ACLU's Hamdani said TAPPS would not be able to conduct itself that way if it accepted federal funding."

And that's what burns his cookies. No basis to use our Constitution or laws against us since it's private money. Of course, in their perfect world there would be no private property.

[AnimalLover]

Bump to read later

[L.N. Smithee]

Khaled Katbi, a representative of the Houston Muslim school, said he went before the TAPPS board Nov. 4 to seek membership. Katbi was asked if the school taught from the Quran, and he said it did. "Their questions were reasonable," he told the Chronicle. "I did not sense hostility." One week later, however, Katbi received the letter from Burleson, which said the school needed to answer certain questions before it could be admitted. Katbi said he was "astonished." Burleson asked: "Do you teach your students to 'Make war on them (Christians and Jews) until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme' (Koran 8:37)?" Katbi said he did not reply to the questions.

why not?

[L.N. Smithee]

The letter reflects "the rise in anti-Muslim sentiment" since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, [Ibrahim Hooper] claimed.

No spit, Sherlock! You wanna know why? Look in a mirror!