WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today welcomed a ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected claims that students at a California school were being "indoctrinated" during lessons about Islam.
The court rejected a lawsuit by two Christian families that accused the Byron Union School District of unconstitutionally endorsing religious practices. "The Islam program activities were not overt religious exercises that raise Establishment Clause concerns," said the three-judge panel.
In 2003, a U.S. District Judge ruled in favor of the school district. Thursday's appeals court decision upheld that ruling.
Hmmmm.... funny how the 9th Circuit does not believe that teaching young children about the wonderful concepts of the most evil religion in the history of the world (Islam) constitutes an "overt religious exercise," yet believed that the term "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance violated "Seperation of Church and State." Later in that report:
"We welcome the court's recognition that the learning process can include information about different faiths and cultures without being considered an endorsement of a particular set of religious beliefs or practices," said Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed.Any decision endorsed by CAIR has to be bad. CAIR has deep ties to Islamic terrorism and anti-Israeli terror groups. From Wikipedia:
A number of other CAIR officials have been charged with, and some convicted of, offenses related to the support of Islamist terrorism.
On February 2, 1995, CAIR advisory board member Imam Siraj Wahaj was named by the Office of the U.S. Attorney as one of several "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators in the attempt to blow up New York City monuments," including the World Trade Center in 1993. He has called for replacing the American government with an Islamic caliphate, warned that America will crumble unless it submits to Islam, and was a character witness during Abdel-Rahman's World Trade Center bombing trial.
On December 18, 2002, Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of CAIR-Texas and a co-founder of the Holy Land Foundation, was arrested by the FBI on charges of having ties with front groups that fund Islamic terrorism. In 2005, Elashi and two of his brothers were convicted on 21 counts of federal terrorism charges related to funding Hamas and the illegal export of electronics equipment to U.S. State Department-designated state sponsors of terrorism.
In January 2003, CAIR's director of community relations and founder of the Islamic Assembly of North America, Bassem Khafagi, was arrested by the FBI on charges of having ties to front groups that fund Islamist terrorism. Khafagi pleaded guilty to charges of visa and bank fraud, and agreed to be deported to Egypt.
In August 2003, CAIR's former civil-rights coordinator, Randall "Ismail" Royer, was arrested on charges of possessing "in his automobile an AK-47-style rifle and 219 rounds of ammunition" in September 2001, and conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda and to the Taliban. He pleaded guilty and is serving 20 years in federal prison.
CAIR has been a traitorous organization since its founding. It was created in 1994 by Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad, two co-founders of the Islamic organization Islamic Association of Palestine. This organization, more commonly known as the IAP, had its assets frozen by the United States years ago for giving money to Hamas, the terrorist group that frequently murders Israelis with suicide bombers. Even more officially, in December 2004, a federal U.S. courtroom found the organization guilty of aiding and abetting Hamas in the death of a 17-year-old U.S. citizen in Israel in a civil lawsuit. It was now official: the IAP is directly connected to Hamas. And there is no doubt that CAIR is a brainchild of the IAP.
Another connection was proposed by the sworn testimony of terror expert Matthew Epstein before the Senate, he said:
The first manifestation of Hamas’ presence in the United States was the creation
of the Islamic Association for Palestine for North America (IAP) in 1981.16
Founded by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, IAP has served as a Hamas
support organization in the United States by publishing Hamas communiqués,
distributing Hamas recruitment videos and hosting conferences raising monetary
and popular support for Hamas. Marzook has been listed by the Treasury
Department as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.
CAIR's connections to terrorism are undeniable. Anything this evil organization endorses is probably trouble.