Separation of Mosque and State

April 12, 2007 — San Diego Union Tribune...

Carver Elementary School in San Diego has long been a microcosm of the world's diversity, serving immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt and Somalia, among other places.

Now it hosts the San Diego Unified School District's only Arabic language program – one that is being scrutinized in the wake of a substitute teacher's complaint that it is a form of “religious indoctrination.”...

The district is investigating the teacher's allegations, but school officials say they have been careful not to violate the law setting up the program....

“The goal is to give our parents a wide array of options – high-quality options – in the district,” Director of School Choice Kyo Yamashiro said. “Both for competition's sake and because we are losing enrollment, we want to be able to bring students back into the district.”

June 12, 2007 — PipeLine News...

The controversy became a matter of public record when a substitute teacher Mary-Frances Stevens made a report to the local school board in which she claimed that Carver’s Muslim children were being led in Islamic prayer by a teacher’s aide. Steven’s, who subbed at the school on March 8 stated that the lesson plan she was given included the allotting of one hour for prayer.

The teacher’s allegation of religious indoctrination led to an investigation.

In true multicultural fashion, the school has gone to extreme lengths to accommodate its new students; the curriculum features the teaching of Arabic - the language of the Quran - single gender classes for girls as well as organized prayer...for Muslims only.

A new dhimmi class schedule - expressly designed to kow tow to Carver’s new students - was instituted. It created an extra 15 minute recess period as part of an hour set aside so that Carver’s Muslims can pray en-masse while in class. Additionally, the school cafeteria menu no longer serves pork or other foods which conflict with fundamentalist Muslim diet restrictions [halal]....

The unequal treatment on display at Carver is manifest, especially when seen in the light of how requests by Christians who have petitioned to have their prayer needs accommodated are routinely denied by public school officials. It goes without saying that public school cafeteria menus have seldom if ever been modified to accommodate the religious needs of Orthodox Jews who also must not eat pork.

July 9, 2007 — Investor's Business Daily...

Seems the ACLU couldn't care less that a San Diego public school has set aside 15 minutes of classroom instruction time for Muslim students to pray, while non-Muslims twiddle their thumbs.

Right now it has no plans to legally challenge the budding madrassa as endorsement of a religion by government. Apparently the establishment clause only applies to the practice of Judeo-Christian rituals in public places.

...Carver administrators have carved out a school within a school expressly for Muslims, elevating them above Christian and Jewish students. They've had 15 minutes of instruction time taken away from them, so Muslims can roll out their pray mats.

It amounts to a special privilege afforded a specific religion, which plainly does not have our best interests at heart. That same privilege is not extended to other faiths that are part of our traditional culture — and do not wish us ill or pray for the demise of our system of government.

August 1, 2007 — WorldNetDaily...

Officials at a public elementary school in San Diego are dropping special times for Islamic prayers and classes segregated by sex, changes they had made when students from a failing Arabic-language charter school joined them a year ago....

"The district is, and must demonstrably be, neutral toward religious belief and practice, leaving to our school children and their parents decisions about religious faith," [Superintendent Carl Cohn] said in the memo to Carver Principal Kimberlee Kidd.

He said Carver teachers and staff "must not encourage student prayer or make any statement that could be construed to be endorsement, encouragement, or promotion of prayer." Nor, he said, should teachers "discourage" voluntary prayer.

He also said during recess and lunch students are free to play, study, talk, read, dream "or pray." Third, teachers and staff must not participate "visibly or audibly in praying" with student groups. And he said the district may not schedule class time specifically around Muslim prayer times.

But officials said the school schedule will be set up now so students can say their required midday prayers during their lunch periods, and single-gender classes will be eliminated.

Cohn noted in his memo that such classes are legal, but they had become a "serious distraction" to the educational process and would be discontinued. Offering Arabic as a language study at the school for students grades kindergarten through eighth grade will continue, but he noted that the Quran may not be used as a text.

Undated, but recent —RogerHedgecock.com...

It took weeks, two hired guns and a full truck load of manure from the district before they did what they could have done on day one…shut down the madrassa in a taxpayer funded school in the United States of America (well, at least California).

But not all is well at Carver. As with the regular class schedule, the Muslims have been able to take over the PTA. They have elected their own to the leadership. They have stifled voting by women at the meetings and Lord only knows what they discuss at these sessions....

As Al Qaeda proves daily they are very good at public relations and mass media. And as we learn here at home groups such as CAIR are very good at sensitivity training for our cops, teachers, lawmakers and others. And they are very good at using our freedoms against us.

Posted by Danny Carlton at August 1, 2007 7:24 AM