Sunday, July 19, 2009

Do unto Christians

Do unto Christians as you would do unto Muslims.

Shorter Mark Gislason, reacting to Katie’s column today about the ACLU of Minnesota going after the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) for mixing pubic education and religion in its charter school operation.

Katie’s column is remarkable not for its subject matter, heaven forefend; she has railed about the school for a long time in keeping with her concern about all things Muslim: cab drivers, foot baths, flying imams, and the like. You name it and Katie has probably wailed about it. Several times.

No, what makes this one special is that she praises the action of the ACLU of Minnesota. And she even quotes its state director, indirectly:

"It's a theocratic school," state ACLU director Chuck Samuelson told City Pages. "It is as plain as the substantial nose on my face."

Katie also quotes the ACLU complaint in a couple of spots. Do you know what this means, boys and girls?

That Katie has multiple sources, Spotty?

Grasshopper, it probably means that Katie not only didn’t actually talk to anybody at the ACLU, that she was in a fevered dream state when she wrote that the lawsuit would “tear down the school’s curtain” to reveal the answers to important questions raised by, well, Katie (or maybe by Powerline; Spot didn’t check), including the disappearance of several young Somali men and the death of some of them.

Perhaps we can also get the ACLU to look into the disappearance of Judge Roy Bean, Amelia Earhart, and Jimmy Hoffa. The FBI hasn’t figured these cases out either.

But back to Mark’s substantial point: there are many more Christian-inspired charter schools out there, ripe for the suing, too, but the ACLU is nowhere to be found so far. Spot has written about them, and their theological-sounding names several times (just put “charter schools” in the search engine). And, come to think of it, where was the ACLU when the “flying imams” were denied a public accommodation (a seat on a scheduled airline)?

Spot gets at least a couple of fund-raising appeal messages from the ACLU every week. But he certainly won’t be inclined to respond until this organization figures out the Establishment Clause has a broader reach when it comes to education than it seems to believe now.

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