A Colorado high school student quit the school choir after an Islamic song containing the lyric "there is no other truth except Allah" made it into the repertoire.
James Harper, a senior at Grand Junction High School in Grand Junction, put his objection to singing "Zikr," a song written by Indian composer A.R. Rahman, in an email to Mesa County School District 51 officials. When the school stood by choir director Marcia Wieland's selection, Harper quit.
"I don’t want to come across as a bigot or a racist, but I really don’t feel it is appropriate for students in a public high school to be singing an Islamic worship song,” Harper told KREX-TV. "This is worshipping another God, and even worshipping another prophet ... I think there would be a lot of outrage if we made a Muslim choir say Jesus Christ is the only truth."
District spokesman Jeff Kirtland rejected Harper's analogy.
"This is about bringing diversity to the students and showing them other things that are out there,” Kirtland told KREX. "The teacher was open with the parents and students do not have to participate in this voluntary club choir."
Kirtland did not return multiple calls for comment from FoxNews.com.
Rahman, who has sold hundreds of millions of records and is well-known in his homeland, has said the song is not intended for a worship ceremony. Messages seeking comment from Rahman were not immediately returned.
The song is written in Urdu, but one verse translates to "There is no truth except Allah" and "Allah is the only eternal and immortal." Although the choir sang the original version, Wieland distributed translated lyrics.
Grand Junction High School Principal Jon Bilbo did not return calls for comment.
School officials told KREX-TV that Wieland -- aware that there would be questions regarding the song -- asked her students to watch a YouTube video of the song prior to performing it.
So, let's get this again. If I put a Christian hymn in a school choir's set list, I'm violating seperation of Church and State, blah blah blah. If I put in a Muslim song, I'm helping to understand diversity.
As I understand it, there are cultural diversity classes out there in many districts that teach about other faiths, and I'm fine with that. This, though, is not a diversity class by any stretch. Nor is it a place for kids to be "forced to worship against their beliefs", isn't that what they say about a Valedictorian wanting to thank God in his/her commencement speech?
If this gets in under the flag of "diversity", then Christian prayers, Menorahs at Hannukah, Buddhist meditations, and atheist lectures should ALL be allowed. By allowing this, the argument goes, the school- and therefore the state- is promoting one religion against all others. At least, that's what they would say if it were Now Thank We All Our God instead of Zikr.
Come on, PC elite. It's not diversity if you exclude a single point of view, even if you reason that it is society's dominant position. This student was allowed to opt out- but this meant quitting choir, something that was important to him. He can be made to quit in the name of diversity, but one person can shut down a whole graduation if they don't want to hear a prayer? Either secular means secular- or the atheist student can opt-out of the valedictory speech. Or you can continue being a hypocrite.
Side note to my Christian friends- isn't it funny how Satan doesn't work near as hard against Allah as he does against Christ?
What's good for the goose is good for the gander............this really pisses me off
ReplyDeleteThis article neither discredits the ALCU nor the FFRF. Nowhere in the above article does it mention any attempt by the student to contact the above mentioned organizations. If the student had I'm sure the ACLU would have stepped in on his behalf on what is clearly a direct violation of separation of church and state. This assumption is based on the ACLU doing so in similar cases in the past. Secular society doesn't have a vendetta against Christianity (no matter how much the right wing media would like to convince you otherwise). The fact of the matter is that this government has clear and reasonable rules as to how religion may play a part in society. Logical well reasoning people don't care what religion you choose to practice, just that you don't force those beliefs on other people or unduly influence those with impressionable minds. The public school system is one such place where the future of our society is most impressionable and therefore one of the most important places where we make sure that they are only being tought things that can be proven by evidence.
ReplyDeleteJosh, you are right, the article doesn't discredit your groups, my lead-in does. And it doesn't discredit them about the situation in the article, but in my statement that they like to paint Christians as hypocrites. Clearly the teacher and the district supporting him are loose cannons. But the difference between Christians and ACLU/FFR is in that the Christian student, rather than getting a big, bullying legal organization to support him in forcing the school to bend to his will, did what anyone with a minority opinion and common sense should do- he stepped aside to let the majority do what they wished. Because in a free society, the majority should not have to bend to every whim of the minority. Government, as I've said before, should protect minorities not elevate them above the rest of society. ACLU/FFR, in attacking Christian causes, would have us believe otherwise. That Any one or two people should be able to bring a crashing halt to what everybody and anybody else wants. And THAT is why I brought ACLU/FFR into the lead.
ReplyDeleteCWM:
ReplyDeleteWhen we can avoid casting the hackneyed "double-standard" to seeimgly every facet of everyone's life,and begin (again) to hold everyone to the SAME (and better) standard, we can easily avoid such flaps like this.
Good post.
Stay safe up there.
A good, thought provoking post!
ReplyDeleteI am not sure satan works against Allah at all.