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12-24-2004, 02:47 PM
ACLU, CAIR target Christian group
Demand probe on behalf of Muslim school offended by 'hostile' questions
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Posted: December 24, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
The ACLU and an Islamic civil-rights group are calling for investigation of the head of a private-school association who wrote a letter to a Muslim school applying for membership, asking why it would want to join a group that doesn't fit its beliefs.
In a two-page letter, Edd Burleson, director of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (http://www.tapps.net/), or TAPPS, asked the Houston school, Dar-Ul-Arqam, 10 questions, including its attitude toward "the spread of Islam in America" and the goals of the school "in this regard."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (http://www.cairhouston.org/) has demanded an apology and reprimands, calling the letter an "alarmingly intolerant and hostile attitude toward Islam and Muslims," the Houston Chronicle reports.
"The TAPPS letter, a symbol of religious intolerance, has no place in a nation that was originally built by those seeking asylum from such intolerance," said Iesa Galloway, executive director of CAIR's Houston office, in correspondence to the TAPPS board.
Dar-Ul-Arqam, with more than 300 students at three locations, already belongs to a local interscholastic association with grade-school and middle-school programs, but TAPPS would offer scholastic competition for the school's 19 high schoolers.
The school is under supervision of the Islamic Education Institute of Texas.
TAPPS membership includes 238 schools across the state, including many Catholic and Protestant institutions in the Houston area.
More on this Story (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42085)
Demand probe on behalf of Muslim school offended by 'hostile' questions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: December 24, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
The ACLU and an Islamic civil-rights group are calling for investigation of the head of a private-school association who wrote a letter to a Muslim school applying for membership, asking why it would want to join a group that doesn't fit its beliefs.
In a two-page letter, Edd Burleson, director of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (http://www.tapps.net/), or TAPPS, asked the Houston school, Dar-Ul-Arqam, 10 questions, including its attitude toward "the spread of Islam in America" and the goals of the school "in this regard."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (http://www.cairhouston.org/) has demanded an apology and reprimands, calling the letter an "alarmingly intolerant and hostile attitude toward Islam and Muslims," the Houston Chronicle reports.
"The TAPPS letter, a symbol of religious intolerance, has no place in a nation that was originally built by those seeking asylum from such intolerance," said Iesa Galloway, executive director of CAIR's Houston office, in correspondence to the TAPPS board.
Dar-Ul-Arqam, with more than 300 students at three locations, already belongs to a local interscholastic association with grade-school and middle-school programs, but TAPPS would offer scholastic competition for the school's 19 high schoolers.
The school is under supervision of the Islamic Education Institute of Texas.
TAPPS membership includes 238 schools across the state, including many Catholic and Protestant institutions in the Houston area.
More on this Story (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42085)