Would 'One Nation under Allah' be ok?
Christian students and parents cannot sue a school district where some seventh-graders pretended to be Muslims for three weeks during a course in world history, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the role-playing game was not a religious exercise that violated anybody's constitutional rights. ... Brooke Carlin encouraged her students to play at being Muslims - adopt Muslim names, recite a line from a prayer and give up candy or television to simulate fasting, for example. Students were permitted to opt out. On the final exam they were asked to critique elements of Muslim culture.As it happens, I agree with the 9th Circuit here. However, it is impossible to believe that if we were to reverse the roles of Islam and Christianity in this situation the court would have ruled the same way. I the 9th circuit didn't really offer anything as to the reasoning behind this decision. I would find it entertaining to read why 'under god' in the pledge constitutes an establshiment of religion while Muslim prayers in school does not. (via The Jawa Report)
posted by Dave Justus | 11/18/2005 12:06:00 PM
4 Comments:
I think that any teaching of religion should not be in public schools. Not because I hate religion, but rather because you cannot give all equal treatment. Let parents teach religion to their kids, as they see fit.
Tsykoduke, I agree.
But then, " I would find it entertaining to read why 'under god' in the pledge constitutes an establshiment of religion while Muslim prayers in school does not." is such a fundamental question in the way that the US is at present that I can but wonder just how long State and Religion and Judiciary can survive as respected parts of your society.
Perhaps to try and answer Dave's thought, the difference is that the Christian example is "serious" whereas the muslim example can be categorised as "role play". Obviously in the latter the emphasis would be on "play", i.e. not meant to be "serious" or meaningful in any way.
How sad...
Anybody can pray in American schools to whomever they want to.
"One Nation Under Allah" would have the same problems as "One Nation Under God".
Interestingly, the Jews, Christians and Muslims are all Abrahamic Monotheists...and in theory at least God and Allah are the same entity...and Yahweh too.
The best thing that can be said about God is silence. That is because we actually know so little about God.
I think that we have to teach a religion if we want to teach history, philosophy, and yes to a certain extent even science.
For the most part, I think people need to relax a good deal on this whole issue. This exercise, as I aslluded to in the post, doesn't seem to me to represent establishment of religion, and neither does have 'under god' be in the pledge.
Certainly I don't think we should be holding religious services in schools, and I am happy to not have any prayers led by school officials either. Beyond that, I think that believers and non-believers should relax about the whole thing.
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