The Ninth Circus Strikes Again

As if we thought that the Ninth "Circus" Court of Appeals couldn't get any lower, any more inept and incompetent, they never seem to fail. Investor's Business Daily has the story.

In our brave new schools, Johnny can't say the pledge, but he can recite the Quran. Yup, the same court that found the phrase "under God" unconstitutional now endorses Islamic catechism in public school.

In a recent federal decision that got surprisingly little press, even from conservative talk radio, California's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it's OK to put public-school kids through Muslim role-playing exercises, including:
Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . ."

Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: "Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger."

Chanting "Praise be to Allah" in response to teacher prompts.

Professing as "true" the Muslim belief that "The Holy Quran is God's word."

Giving up candy and TV to demonstrate Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially "becoming a Muslim" for two full weeks.

If I were one of these parents, I'd be spitting nails. Hopefully these parents are preparing an appeal to the Supreme Court. There is no way this decision can pass Constitutional muster. If they accept this appeal (which they should, and had better), Justice Scalia's opinion should be interesting to read.

Parents of seventh-graders, who after 9-11 were taught the pro-Islamic lessons as part of California's world history curriculum, sued under the First Amendment ban on religious establishment. They argued, reasonably, that the government was promoting Islam.

But a federal judge appointed by President Clinton told them in so many words to get over it, that the state was merely teaching kids about another "culture."

So the parents appealed. Unfortunately, the most left-wing court in the land got their case. The 9th Circuit, which previously ruled in favor of an atheist who filed suit against the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, upheld the lower court ruling.

The decision is a major victory for the multiculturalists and Islamic apologists in California and across the country who've never met a culture or religion they didn't like — with the exception of Western civilization and Christianity. They are legally in the clear to indoctrinate kids into the "peaceful" and "tolerant" religion of Islam, while continuing to denigrate Judeo-Christian values.

Here's a question for those doddering twits: Will they teach our kids in Islam the way the Saudis do?

In the California course on world religions, Christianity is not presented equally. It's covered in just two days and doesn't involve kids in any role-playing activities. But kids do get a good dose of skepticism about the Christian faith, including a biting history of its persecution of other peoples. In contrast, Islam gets a pass from critical review. Even jihad is presented as an "internal personal struggle to do one's best to resist temptation," and not holy war.

How is this "fair" at all? If the argument that the court bought (hook, line, and "toker") was that this was a part of cultural studies, they need to be removed from the bench. The Christian faith has been around for 2000 years. Two days represented in schools, with no participation in a hands-on approach to the religion? I hardly call that fair or equitable.

The ed consultant's name is Susan L. Douglass. No, she's not a Christian scholar. She's a devout Muslim activist on the Saudi government payroll, according to an investigation by Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington." He found that for years Douglass taught social studies at the Islamic Saudi Academy just outside Washington, D.C. Her husband still teaches there.

So what? By infiltrating our public school system, the Saudis hope to make Islam more widely accepted while converting impressionable American youth to their radical cause. Recall that John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," was a product of the California school system. What's next, field trips to Mecca?

This case is critical not just to our culture but our national security. It should be brought before the Supreme Court, which has outlawed prayer in school. Let's see what it says about practicing Islam in class. It will be a good test for the bench's two new conservative justices.

This will be a test for the new-look Supreme Court. If another justice steps down in the next year, or so, it could prove to be an intreresting case. But above the interest is the importance that this wacky decision be turned over. Religion has protections, no matter what, and it is precedent that no public school is to have any sort of religious observance on a campus. This program does exactly that. They are, for a full two weeks, practicing Islam. That violates the First Amendment. It's that simple. And the Ninth "Circus," at this point, seems to need more of an overhaul than the UN does.

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