Parents of a boy enrolled in Manhattan Beach Middle School are pulling their son out of class because the school is teaching children the tents of Islam, Los Angeles news station KTLA reports.
The father said, “The audacity of this school, to think that they can sit these children down and teach ’em whatever religion they please; it’s preposterous. This is illegal, basically. You can’t teach religion in schools any more, but apparently, in this particular school, at least, that’s not the case.”
Parents said they discovered that what their children were learning about Islam was more about the tenets of the faith than the history of the religion, according to KTLA. One question asked the students to write down teachings from the Koran.
The father continued, “What I saw written in these bubbles was, ‘The one true God, Allah’ in one of the bubbles. In one of the other bubbles was ‘All people must submit to Allah,’ in another bubble. The I turned the page over and I see the five pillars of Islam.”
The parents assert that the students should be taught the history behind the religions, whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or others, but not the tenets of the faith.
Father: “Can you imagine the outcry all over this country if children were bringing home paperwork that asked them to write down John 3:16, or asked them to write down the 10 Commandments?”
Mother: “And if it ended with the Declaration of the Faith, Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior? That’s what the equivalent, I mean, part of us, for our son? We’d be happy about that.”
Father: “But some parents may not be.”
The parents talked to the principal, but the school refused to change the schoolwork, prompting the parents to remove their son from the class. The school would not respond to questions from KTLA.
Photo: File