'No separation of mosque and state?'

Excellent Letter to the Editor originally published in The Pottstown Mercury about how the liberal education establishment is bending over backwards to accommodate the tiny Muslim minority in schools while continuing to battle the 85 percent Christian majority. Where is the separation of church-and-state when it comes to religions other than Christianity?

Does The Koran belong in school?

It won't be long until school starts.

Now that public school textbooks (see 6th grade Social Studies book, The World, and more) are being printed with pro-Islamic religious content and pro-Islamic political views, and because Islam is a religion, I am wondering about the response to this material from people who have been known to raise one unholy howl whenever there has been a hint that their children have been or might be exposed to any mention of Jesus or the God of the Bible or oh, may God forbid (God?), the terror of prayer in the name of the Savior. (Oddly, people do not mind dishonorably using His name in general conversation do they?) Granted, Jesus is mentioned in the Islamic teaching in the textbook, but what is written abut Him is very seriously not true.

Any person agreeing to accept the Koran for facts about Mohammad should logically regard the authority about Jesus to be the Bible, certainly not the Koran or any other extra biblical religious books that contain distorted passages from the Bible.

Some schools are even allotting times for Muslim students to spread their little prayer rugs and recite Islamic prayers. What? No separation of mosque and state? Maybe people who are not too acquainted with Islam just don't take this religious bias seriously enough to fret over it, but we certainly should regard the consequences of some of its teachings seriously. They are of a lot more concern than bowing heads for prayer at lunch times or, scarier yet,....at flagpoles. If there is no separation of mosque and state, there should be no separation of church and state (by secular definition).

It is a religious controversy, so ask yourselves: Why do we tolerate those in our society who would have us legally reject the religion that formed the character of the men who originally built our national foundation and culture into the once strongest, most influential in the world, while we educationally promote the religion of our country's greatest enemies that had nothing, nothing, nothing to do with our development or founding ideologies?

The Bible, the first holy book to exist, with its teachings that have been twisted by false religions, and misquoted by any number of people who critically critique it or misuse it as an excuse to do wrong, has remained remarkably well preserved and offers a thorough understanding of right and wrong, and it tells of the real God who died for our sins, rather than one who requires his followers to die for him. Also, the Bible never tells us to inflict cruelty upon those who reject it like the religion being taught in those textbooks.

Yet the Bible seems to be the book that an awful lot of people fear. Could it be the truth spoken from the Bible somehow feels more unnerving than the lies we hear and the lies we tell to ourselves? Does anyone care about school children being taught to accept error as truth? It's been happening with more than religious and political thought.

If you care, please, plan an alternative to public education for your children.

SANDRA BUTTS
Pottstown