dispatches from TJICistan

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-…

Schoolboys punished with detention for refusing to kneel in class and pray to Allah

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and ‘pray to Allah’ during a religious education lesson.

Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshiped…

One parent, Sharon Luinen, said: “This isn’t right, it’s taking things too far.

“I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn’t join in Muslim prayer.

“Making them pray to Allah, who isn’t who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful.

Back in AFROTC field training in 1990, one morning we were doing physical training (PT) down at the lake shore as the sun rose, and one of the cadet training assistants (CTAs) ordered all of us to our knees. We got down. He then ordered us to keep our hands over our heads, lean forward, touch the beach, then reverse the motion, which he called “worshiping the Sun God”.

99 or so cadets did; I did not.

He yelled “Cadet – what are you doing?!?!”

“Sir, I’m not worshiping the Sun God, sir!”

“Cadet – this isn’t a religious issue; do it!”

“Sir, no sir!”

This repeated a bit, and dire threats were made.

..then, an hour later, I was pulled into a room with the CTA, a captain, a major, a lieutenant colonel, and a full bird colonel, and I was told by one and all that I had made absolutely the right decision, and it was important to disobey illegal orders, and good show, old chap!

I wish I could say that my refusal had been 100% motivated by religious fidelity. In fact, my motivation was 50% religious, and 50% knowing that if I played it totally straight faced, I would definitely win and get the CTA in a deep sticky mire of First Ammendment violation feces.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at 8:13 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.