Posted By James Besser
Some interesting back and forth on a roiling controversy in Fairfax County, Va. involving a school funded by the government of Saudi Arabia.
According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the Islamic Saudi Academy is part of a Saudi religious outreach system that teaches intolerance. The group is demanding the school, housed in a former public high school in the Washington, DC suburb, be closed. Read their analysis of the school here.
For a good look at the arguments of those concerned about the school, check out the Micah Report , a blog by terrorism analyst Micah Halpern. In an entry headlined “The School of Extreme Hatred," Halpern describes a “school that has chosen to teach hatred - pure, evil, hatred. And that hatred is directed at you and me.”
But a Washington Post editorial on Friday complained that critics haven’t bothered to actually read the books used in the school and reported that Academy officials have been very open with local officials responding to the controversy.
And while drawing the line at the teaching of violence, the Post raised a church-state argument: “It is worrisome anytime government tries to weigh in on what's appropriate for a religious school. Many such schools teach what outsiders might consider intolerance: that homosexuality is a sin, for example, or that only those who believe in Jesus Christ are destined for heaven.”