Islam Display in Kansas  School OK by ACLU

They say the display did not "proselytize." Is this a new ACLU standard for action?

Two weeks ago, students at the Minneha Core Knowledge Magnet Elementary School in Wichita, Kansas, were greeted in the hall by this bulletin board display:



The display was later removed by the school after a brief media reaction.

PJ Media contacted Doug Bonney, legal director of the Kansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU has frequently taken action regarding similar displays regarding Christianity. Bonney said he was only peripherally aware of the issue as he is “not a blog reader,” but that he had received a brief phone call on it:

Nobody ever filed a formal complaint. I haven’t investigated, and since [the display is] down I probably won’t bother. I don’t know enough about it to know if it was objectionable or not.

However, Bonney said that the display was likely not objectionable to him, judging from the information he had:

There’s something of a fine line between teaching about religion and proselytizing. Proselytizing is, of course, prohibited.

He said a temporary display is different than a permanent display, and noted that in an educational context the display was probably acceptable. For comparison, Bonney noted that the Ten Commandments display at the University of Kansas Law School is legal because it is in context with several other displays of historical law, such as one depicting Hammurabi.

Ken Klukowski of the Family Research Council took exception to Bonney’s assertions:

[Bonney's response] is fascinating, because the ACLU routinely takes great exception to posting the Ten Commandments. They have always vehemently opposed the Ten Commandments. This is a great example of the double standard on the left.

Klukowski said the ACLU has argued that the very presence of a display of the Ten Commandments is a violation of the Establishment Clause, and that the ACLU rarely makes accusations of proselytizing.

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