Court Rulings in the United Hypocrital States of America

A 9th Circuit ruling regarding students "playing muslim" for three weeks has demonstrated the hypocritical nature of our court system these days.

A teacher in Byron, CA had her students spend three weeks experiencing the life of a muslim by assuming Islamic names, reciting prayers in class, memorizing and reciting verses from the Quran, and also getting a taste of Ramadan fasting by going without something for a day such as television.

San Francisco U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton dismissed the suit in December, 2003, saying Carlin was merely teaching and not indoctrinating since the students did not engage in actual religious exercises.

Last November The 9th Circuit Court agreed, in an unpublished memorandum, that since students were allowed to "opt-out" of the exercise that it was not a violation of the students' first ammendment freedom of religion.

The issue here is not with their decision in this case per se (the opt-out clause is a convincing argument), but rather the inconsistency with which the 9th Circuit, and most of the judicial system, rules on these cases.

Can you imagine what the reaction had been if an instructor had her class "play Christian" for 3 weeks? The ACLU would have cried "Freedom From Religion (especially Judeo-Christian ones)!" all the way to Washington. Richard Thompson, chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian defense organization, points to what he calls an obvious double standard:

"While public schools prohibit Christian students from reading the Bible, praying, displaying the Ten Commandments, and even mentioning the word 'God,' students in California are being indoctrinated into the religion of Islam," he told World Net Daily on filing the lawsuit. "Public schools would never tolerate teaching Christianity in this way. Just imagine the ACLU’s outcry if students were told that they had to pray the Lord's Prayer, memorize the Ten Commandments, use such phrases as 'Jesus is the Messiah,' and fast during Lent."

This ruling comes after the 9th Circuit ruled in 2002 that the Pledge of Allegiance could NOT be said in school if it included the words "under God" even though the school rules in this case also had the magical "opt-out" clause. They felt that children listening to other students recite the pledge was a "coersive exercise." So, apparently the court is telling the American people that the 1st Ammendment affords freedom of religion only as long as they agree with it.

The amazing thing about this case is that the ruling was in an unpublished memorandum, indicating that the court felt this was entirely supported by precedent and was not anything new, since unpublished decisions cannot be cited in future cases. The opposite case seems to be true based on precedent set by the 9th Circuit Court themselves.