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Pray our parents don't find out!
By JohnAKeith on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 6:05pm
Bella Wong, superintendent of Wellesley public schools, has sent out a letter of apology to parents of students for allowing six-graders to pray while visiting the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC), in Roxbury.
According to the letter, school teachers brought students from the (mandatory) "Enduring Beliefs and the World Today" class on field trips to visit a synagogue and a mosque, and they also visited a gospel music performance and met with "representatives of the Hindu religion". Students had to receive parental permission to attend the field trips.
For the mosque visiting, half the students went one day, the rest the next. On the second day, a representative of the mosque invited students to join them in a prayer. Five students chose to participate.
Yesterday, a video of the Islamic prayer session was posted on YouTube by Boston-based Americans for Peace and Tolerance. (I don't know how to embed).
Controversy ensued (or, is ensuing ...).
This story was first reported by Wicked Local - the Wellesley Townsman
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Comments
who cares? Key word was
who cares?
Key word was "invited". Hate mongers and bible thumpers can shove it.
No one was forced, and no one was indoctrinated.
Thank-you for your thoughtful
Thank-you for your thoughtful reply.
np!
np!
Religion to children is all
Religion to children is all about the parent choosing the religion for the impressionable child and then effectively brainwashing them into "faith".
Whoever was leading tour should've known that some parents would flip out.
I demand that tax dollars are
I demand that tax dollars are used to introduce our children to all religions, including Satanists, Druids, worshipers of the sacred spaghetti monster...............you see where this is going.
Wow.
I bet those kids' lives are forever compromised. I hope they can forget their horrific experience and the Christian God will accept them back in with open arms!
...
sigh.
You know...in case they're not actually Muslims...
But even if they aren't, maybe more people need to visit mosques and listen or even join in the prayer once. It's time to stop acting as if "Islam" is the problem. It's time to stop criminalizing being a Muslim. It's time to stop acting like these kids were somehow harmed by their _voluntary_ participation in an Islamic prayer session! I'm pissed at the school system for apologizing about this!
This was just like how you go to Old Sturbridge Village and get to work the butter churn once to see what it was like (OMG, CHILD LABOR LAWZ!!!).
Damn, I hate people sometimes.
PS -- I don't expect the YouTube comments to be balanced at all since "Americans for Peace and Tolerance" (the most hypocritical name for one of these groups I've ever seen) have to approve them first. Douchebags.
The "dots" were increased in
The "dots" were increased in size so you could actually see them on the limited pixels a PC screen allows...
As long as they didn't eat
Those little cookies made with baby blood. Then they'd never be able to go back.
I just left 23891028957
I just left 23891028957 comments on that thread. We'll see if any of them go through.
I have GOT to educate myself better on Islam so I have something resembling facts when I look at these things.
Americans for Discord and Intolerance
would be a more appropriate name for this group, which contributes nothing of positive value to our local political dialogue.
Could have been worse
They coulda spent the afternoon with Father's Shanley and Geoghan.
I don't want the State
I don't want the State indoctrinating my children in any religion. That is the responsibility of parents. I don't want the State coming between me and my children as far as religion is concerned. And I don't need any lectures about my parental responsibilites from the liberal/fascist lefties
Is it the Left that tends to advocate for school prayer?
I would think you'd have more of a gripe with the "fascists" on the Right.
Yup the right is more of a
Yup the right is more of a problem with the prayer issue than the left. My point is that this trip was part of school and prayers shouldn't be allowed in a school room or on a school trip. And the First Amendment doesn't say that school prayer is OK in certain situations. My kids wouldn't be "harmed" by praying on a school trip nor would they be "harmed" by watching a classroom showing of the "Ten Commandmnents"; but I'd object to the movie being shown in school. The effect of the religious activity on the kids isn't the issue at all... though some posters here think that it is.
Wrong
Prayer in school is allowed. Voluntary prayer is entirely within every student's rights in school as long as it does not disrupt the classroom. The school can't advocate for prayer (like having a public prayer on the intercom) and it can't require a student to pray (like telling them they'll fail if they don't join in the Muslim prayer on the field trip). Otherwise, the student is allowed to pray in the hallway, pray before a test, or pray Mary Jane Rottencrotch will go down on him during study hall. He just can't disrupt the school day with his prayer, like praying out loud while the teacher is trying to talk or everyone standing on their lunch table yelling the Lord's Prayer or walking out of the classroom mid-class to face towards Mecca and genuflect.
Obviously you can pray to
Obviously you can pray to yourself at anytime during the school day; who really knows or cares what you are silently thinking. However, that in no way is what was happening in this case. Here, as part of a public school event, there was organized prayer led by a cleric and from which girls were excluded. Even the school superintendent concedes that it was a mistake and I doubt she will allow it to happen again.
Fascism, by definition, is on
Fascism, by definition, is on the extreme right
Not If You Use The Nolan Chart
Fascism (or Totalitarianism) has a separate quadrant.
I know it's more complicated than left-right, and most folks really don't want to think that hard, but there's a possibility for three-dimensional thought, rather than just linear progression or regression :-)
(The numbers [0 - 20 - 50, etc.] have to do with scoring on The World's Smallest Political Quiz, for which I am NOT providing a link since I'm not trying to hijack this discussion. If interested, Google it.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Is this...
..something to do with Evening magazine?
Not hijacking very much or anything...
But thanks for posting this. It illustrates the point much better than just saying so.
As someone who's right around where liberal and libertarian meet (I pretty much am fine with anything that's not hurting anyone, though I believe that we currently need the government to ensure that everyone has their human rights and basic needs covered since we're not doing so well accomplishing that on our own), I think it's awesome that kids went to a mosque and some of them prayed. And as a religious, non-Muslim person, I think it's fine if they were invited to pray. They weren't required to, and it's not like they were asked to convert.
My mom always taught me that when you go to someone else's religious service as a guest, you do what your host does. So if I go to a service and they're reading aloud about how Jesus is the savior, I'll do the same. I have no problem with Jesus being a savior; he's just not mine. During someone else's service, my feelings involve a mixture of thinking of some of the prayers as applying to my religious beliefs with just different terminology, and viewing others as being parts of their culture that are different from mine but still valid and beautiful.
I guess it's like if I go to another country and am singing their national anthem and folk songs. Singing that Tajikistan is beautiful and glorious doesn't make the United States suck. It's not the same as taking an oath of Tajikistanian citizenship.
It doesn't dilute my religious beliefs to speak a sentence aloud from a prayerbook that doesn't quite mesh with what I believe. Also, my beliefs are strong enough that if I run into something that is outright offensive to me, I'm comfortable not saying that part, and if it's really oppressive, finding a way to enter into some polite dialogue about how it affects people.
Hmm..
You sound very moderate and normal in your views.
There's a rally for that.
Three dimensions?
There's three types of people in the world - those who understand math and those who don't.
Easy solution
If you don't want your kids to learn there are other religions and a bit about said religions' beliefs, send them to private school or homeschool them. Problem solved.
Other, future problems created, perhaps, but no matter.
If a 6th grader
decides to join in b/c they are curious it what is the big deal? The STATE did not force them to do this. They made this decision on their own. If you don't want your 11 year old to make these types of decisions then you shouldn't let them out of the house.
Seriously what is the big deal?
Exactly!
But, then again, the kind of person who would flip out over these things isn't exactly aiming to produce independent thinkers with the ability to run their own lives.
What We Have Learned?
There is something wrong with a lot of people running schools. Even in Wellesley.
Howie Carr's kids?
Any word on whether any of Howie Carr's kids were on the trip? I don't know whether he has any school-aged children, but I guess we'll know by tomorrow!
(That's right, Howiephiles, your champion of the downtrodden lives in...Swellesley!)
We had no idea until you told
We had no idea until you told us. Why should that be a problem. The son of a prep school groundskeeper worked his way up in the world - a classic American success story. But of course you begrudge him. Why couldn't he be born rich like the Kennedys?
Sounds like his dad was the real hero.
Carr's an irritating blowhard. The Globe is more effective at investigating and exposing corruption than he is. More often than not his columns tend toward the incoherent.
I don't begrudge him anything
You're exactly right, which is why I have no problem with where he or anyone else chooses to live.
The point that I was trying to make (admittedly not particularly effectively) was that in my experience, many of his listeners/readers think that he does not have a big radio contract and is working-class stiff like them who is just getting by in a not-too-affluent old suburb.
Lest you think I am being disingenuous, you shouldn't. What you might be perceiving is that I am a little unimpressed because I can beat his up-by-the-bootstraps story.
Tell us more! I want to hear
Tell us more! I want to hear about your wealth.
Howie is like that other Howard on the radio.
A seven figure salary and STILL bitches about it. Publicly! Gee, Howie, I really feel bad for you, glad I don't have that problem. You really can relate to us chumps, you're a working class hero!
Why the apology?
I don't understand why this needs an apology. No one forced the students to pray. They willingly chose to participate, which I think is wonderful.
Is it me or is this a non
Is it me or is this a non issue? On NECNs report the one guy angered at this made out like it was a separation of church and state issue. I'm an atheist and a member of Americans United for Separation of Church and state but I see no problem with kids on a field trip voluntarily joining in with a prayer while on a trip to a house of worship.
On the NECN report a spokesman for the mosque said that their tour guides are instructed NOT to invite people to participate. So I wonder if these guys broke the mosques own rules or if the kids just joined in. Either way I fail to see any harm or anything improper which was done here.
Starting to see what's happening here
For some reason the ISBCC has made it on a bunch of pro-Israeli Jewish hitlists for a bunch of circumspect reasons.
"Americans for Peace and Tolerance" (which is just lucky there is no God to smite them all for even choosing such a name) is run by a prominent Jewish advocate for Israel here in the area named Charles Jacobs. One of the ISBCC's loudest critics is APT which is why they have latched onto this video and have started beating the drum on this...and have so far succeeded in scaring the bejeezus out of the Wellesley school superintendent obviously.
Just great. I can't wait until Fox News starts slathering and foaming at the mouth.
Goose : Gander :: Liberals : Asshats
Not to be too unoriginal, but I think what we're seeing is a ploy by many on the right (pro-Israeli lobby, conservative stink-tanks, GOP-fringe-Tea Partiers, white supremacists, etc.) to use the left's own tactics, symbols and framing for their own (they're that unoriginal).
The "mosque at ground zero" thing was contrasted in the media (especially Fox) with the Qu'ran burn-fest in Florida with the idea that "we are a free country, you can do what you want, but just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD." So the construction of an Islamic community center a few blocks from ground zero becomes equated to burning someone's holy book.
Then there's blatant grab at the civil rights legacy of MLK with that bullshit Glen Beck pulled in Washington (alot of the traditional-values segment of the African-American community in California flipped when the gay community reframed their fight as a continuation of the civil rights struggle -- but aside from Sharpton's counter-rally there wasn't as much oomph as I had hoped for from them on Beck's thievery).
And now the separation of Church & State argument has suddenly gone Bizarro-World with the Bizarro-Superman declaring that religion should be kept out of the schools....when they're normally trying to get "Under God" tattooed on the asses of all children upon entering elementary school.
These things don't just float to the top of the bowl on their own. You start seeing them in the media because someone picks a useful story out of the swirling cess of everyday happenstance and pieces it together for easy consumption by lazy journalists (humble UH editor excepted of course) and voila! The framing of our national discourse slowly oozes out of your tube (or your intertubes as it were).
"Gee Bill I'm feeling very unactualized about my white heritage."
"That's rigth Frank, it's the oppression of the Islamo-Femi-fascists that are trying to devalue your diversity."
"Thank Lord Jesus I'm armed Bill."
"I hear ya."
Bravo.
Excellent comment.
More background
2009 Globe article on the opening of the center.
Everyone in town seems fine with this mosque...except Jacobs who then did everything possible to keep area Jewish leaders from participating in the interfaith breakfast and opening ceremonies.
Here's an Idea
Round up him and those losers who have the Green Party cowed and like to think they'll liberate Palestine by grilling local candidates on their anti-Israel cred. Put them in a soundproof room together.
Two questions for 'Americans for Peace and Tolerance'
1) This incident happened in May. Why did you wait four months to make a public complaint about it? Did it take you that long to edit the video?
2) What's with the "Voice Reenacted"? Is the parent making this complaint too shy to publicly come forward, and if so, why?
Latest update
This may be worth its own separate post for discussion.
Lawsuit incoming from some attorney, Robert Meltzer, who wants to make hay over this as a "constitutional rights" issue. He claims the students had their civil rights violated because the school took them to a house of worship. Nevermind that the entire trip was voluntary and required parent permission by form (one parent opted their kid out of the trip). Nevermind that the invitation to pray with the congregation was voluntary. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Meltzer's fees were being paid for by the "Americans for Peace and Tolerance".
We also now find out that the "Americans for Peace and Tolerance" (HA!) conspired with the chaperone who took the video to document everything inside the mosque for use later by the group after she brought it to their attention PRIOR to the trip that the students were going there. It was a setup from the start to try and find anything they could mock up on the mosque in an attempt to generate just such a video.
I really hope Wellesley tells Meltzer and this horribly misnamed group where they can shove their lawsuit.
PS - Meltzer's law group probably has the worst website ever for a legal group.
We also now find out that the
If this is true... if someone who was supposed to be chaperoning my kids on a field trip instead conspired to use my kids in a stunt... that chaperon would need to start lawyering up.
Consent forms
The parents all signed consent forms allowing their children to go visit a Mosque. Did the parents sign consent forms allowing their children to be videotaped as part of a premeditated political stunt?
The children seen standing and sitting with the worshippers are doing so by their choice. Were the children set up to be used by "Americans for Peace and Tolerance" for a distorted political gotcha given a choice not to participate in that?
Sounds like some of the other parents and kids...
...might have the makings of a pretty good lawsuit against the perfidious faux-chaperone and the inaptly named APT.