Double Standard-Big Time!
ANN ARBOR, MI — On Wednesday, October 19, 2005, the United States Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, California, will hear oral arguments in Eklund v. Byron Union School District. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, represents several parents and children who challenged the Byron Union School District’s practice of teaching twelve-year-old students “to become Muslims.”For three weeks, impressionable twelve-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, which is the symbol of Muslims, were 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 that were hung on the classroom walls. A federal district court judge in San Francisco had previously determined that the school district had not violated the constitution.
According to Richard Thompson, Chief Counsel of the Law Center, “There is a double-standard at play in this case. If the students had done similar activities in a class on Christianity, a constitutional violation would surely have been found. If the public school’s practice is upheld on appeal, all public schools should begin teaching classes on Christianity in the same manner as the Islam class was taught in this case.”
Where's the ACLU? If the tables were turned they'd be on it like flies at a barbecue.
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