This Stand in the Gap Today transcript is of a program that originally aired on September 9, 2019. Host: Sam Rohrer Guest: Richard Thompson with the Thomas More Law Center.
Sam Rohrer: Well, what if I told you, ladies and gentlemen, that one particular anti-American political system and also a terrorist-promoting religion have gained access to public school teachers in service training-type setting, conferences or whatever you may call them, where in those settings Christianity is regularly disparaged, America as a great nation is trashed, white Christian males are identified as more dangerous than Islamic radical terrorists, and that teachers in these settings are told that the Bible has been corrupted by unscrupulous men over the years and not to be trusted. That’s right. Those things that I have said, plus more, are in public schools right now. Whereas these statements are just a tip of the anti-Christian anti-American philosophy being taught to public school teachers across the nation, and I want to say here, paid for unwillingly by local taxpayers. perhaps even in your public school district, perhaps to the teachers who are in that district and then being passed along to the children in your neighborhood.
Well, do you know what political system and religion has rights it appears that Christianity does not have, and what system would actually teach such lies? Well, if you suspected Islam, then you’re right. And if you didn’t, well we’re going to go the direction and tell you who actually is doing it. Now, according to our guest today, who leads a law firm dedicated to the protection of religious Liberty, he said this quote, “This type of infiltration,” which I just described, “This type of infiltration amounts to an Islamic Trojan horse within our public school systems.” He went on to say, “No other religion gets this kind of special treatment in our schools.” Well, with that introduction, let me welcome you to Stand in the Gap today where, again, on this program we’ll focus on what should be headline news, but what is being cleansed and purged from the controlled media?
I’m Sam Rohrer and I will be joined today by Dave Kistler and Gary Dull, our full team and our very special guest. First time really to this program is Richard Thompson. He is the president and the chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center whose byline, their statement is this, battle ready to defend America. Our theme for today’s program is this, Islam and public schools, a threat to freedom. And with, I want to welcome Dick to our program right now. Dick, thank you for being with us today and representing Thomas More Law Center and what you guys are heavily involved in. Thanks for being here.
R. Thompson: Sure. Thank you very much for having me, Sam.
Sam Rohrer: Dick, we got up big area here to go over and you guys are perhaps the leading law firm when it comes to this type of thing. So you are the expert, we’re glad that you are here. Our listeners need to know what you are working on and what actually may be happening in their own very neighborhood. So before we get into this specific thread of the Islamic Trojan horse in our public schools that you defined where teachers of our students are actually being indoctrinated with lies and propaganda paid for by the taxpayer, I want you to share just briefly how Thomas More Law Center is in fact, as you say, battle ready to defend America. Put into there maybe what you have defended or something that would give people a link to what you have done, and perhaps throw in there as well, just briefly, what you think to be the greatest threat facing America here right now.
R. Thompson: Well, that’s a big question. I don’t know if I can answer it all in the time we have. But basically, we are involved in defending religious freedom of Christians and the Christian heritage, time-honored family values and the national security and independence of the United States of America. And that involves our belief that as George Washington said, of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable support. And the President John Adams, another founding father who said our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Keeping those precepts of our founding fathers in mind is so important if we are going to preserve America as a nation based upon Judeo Christian principles. After all, our birth certificate, the declaration of independence, indicated that our rights came from our creator God.
And now, we find, and I’m sure you agree, that our nation is removing itself from those founding principles and is slowly forgetting about the authority of God in the public square. So wherever we find that we are losing our way, whether it’s in the school system or in the political arena, the Thomas More Law Center gets involved in the political fights because we understand because of the system we have today, the courts, the federal courts, especially Supreme court where we have nine unelected lawyers holding lifetime appointments, who basically decide the direction, the religious direction, the moral direction of our nation, who basically over the years, by their decisions, have a dechristianized America.
And we know that’s where the battle is. Whether they discovered out of thin air the constitutional right to abortion or discovered out of thin air our constitution now upholds the right of people of same sex marriage to engaged in so-called Holy matrimony, where the 10 commandments have been removed from school laws, where nativity scenes have been removed, where all prayers in high school graduations have been outlawed. These are all cases that have been decided by the Supreme court and where most Christians thought that they were-
Sam Rohrer: And Dick, let me step in on you if I could right now. I want you to get the set up before we go into the break, you have uncovered what I’m talking about taxpayer funded Islamic propaganda on teachers. Tell us basically where this occurred and the essential elements before we go into this next segment please.
R. Thompson: Okay. Well, we found based upon our investigation and freedom of information act request that a school district in Novi funded Islamic propagandist that came in. And basically in a two-day mandatory seminar for 400 teachers, applied her propaganda indicating as you indicated in the beginning of the program that Islam is the religion that should be glorified, Christianity disparaged and America bashed-
Sam Rohrer: All right Dick, you set it up for us. Ladies and gentlemen, you heard this actually is occurring not just where Dick said there in Michigan, but elsewhere across the country. We’re going to get into the next segment about how is this possible?
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Well, welcome back to Stand in the Gap. I’m Sam Rohrer and accompanied today by Dave Kistler and Gary Dull. Our special guest, Richard Thompson. He is the president and chief counsel of Thomas More Law Center, which is a national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Our theme today is Islam and public schools a real threat to freedom? And we’re going to now talk a little bit more about the incident where 400 school teachers in a school district in Michigan, were subjected to two days worth of indoctrination by an individual who was teaching things positive to Islam and attacking Christianity and our nation.
The real fact, and we want to put it out here, the real fact that teachers in public schools, they do need guidance and they do need counsel about academic goals, curriculum specifics, updates on the law as it affects their duties in the classroom. That’s without question, that has to happen. But what is a real concern is when teachers are forced to undergo what I’m going to call mandatory. And I’m not calling it that, it was mandatory, but I’m going to call it mind-shaping indoctrination on matters of history and culture and religion, and be subjected to really intimidation, deception without question, and flat out propaganda, all at the taxpayers’ expense. By not just someone up the street but an expert. In fact, expert trained in Islamic stealth Jihad strategy.
Now that’s an entirely different matter. And the reality that this type of what we call civilization Jihad, we’ve talked about on this program before, a stealth Jihad that’s occurring right under the noses of our school boards and within our communities. The fact that that’s happening is alarming and it’s what Richard Thompson, who again is president chief counsel of Thomas More Law Center, is thankfully making us aware and they are pursuing. Now the question is, how is that happening? Why is it happening? And we’re going to talk about that here now. The next segment we’re going to talk about precisely what is actually being said and taught?
So Dick right here. Let me go back into this. You said, and as I introduced in the last segment, you said this, “We found that teachers were subjected to two days of Islamic propaganda where Islam was glorified, Christianity disparaged and America bashed,” all funded by the taxpayers of this particular district there in Michigan. And the fact that this was on 400 teachers is an amazing thing. My question here to you to start it out is, how is this possible? How can a clear Islamic agenda be brought into a public school, paid for by the taxpayer, and therein attack Christianity, America and be permitted by the law, it appears, to undercut and attack our very freedoms? How is this happening Dick?
R. Thompson: Well, they’re very clever and one of the ways they do that is they approach the schools and say, “You have some ethnic minorities in your school, so you have to be teaching teachers on how to respond to these minorities.” So they get involved with diversity training, multiculturalism. They talk about how Muslims are victimized by society and white Christian males. And so the schools, because of their concern about these kinds of issues, welcome them into their educational system, pay them money. And then the teachers are mandated to listen to this particular Huda Essa who’s the consultant, who approached the teachers spoke to them wearing a hijab and who we found out, although we had focused on Novi School District at Michigan, we found out that she has clients, not only in Michigan but in several states, including Florida, California, Wisconsin. She was broadcasting her ability to engage in multiculturalism and diversity not only in the Novi but in other states as well.
And once we got involved on this issue, we found out that there are other organizations that are doing the same thing. So aside from her getting involved in Michigan, California, Georgia, Texas, Florida and other organizations similar to her goals, were involved in cases from the East Coast, to the Midwest and to the West Coast. And what is happening, they are using diversity and they are using the idea that Muslims are being victimized to be able to come into these schools and then basically, in a very clever but deceptive way, promote Islam while at the same time denigrating Christianity and also as you indicated, bashing our nation. We have the audio of much of her talk where she basically said America is a genocidal nation, speaking about African Americans and Indians. She never mentioned the fact that for over 1400 years Islam has been engaged in mortal combat with Christians and have massacred millions of people for the sake of Muhammad’s Sharia law. And the Islamic idea of establishing a worldwide caliphate.
She then talks about the fact that the Bible has been corrupted by unscrupulous people and that the only truly uncorrupted unalterable word of God is the Quran. And she then goes on to say that because of the corruption of the Bible, that the Quran is the dominant and the pure religious text that people should follow. She then talks about, she says, “Well, you know, Muslims respect Jesus.” And she kind of talks about, “Well Jesus was a Muslim Messiah as well.” Her definition of Messiah is totally different than the Christian definition. They deny the fact that … Islam denies the fact that Jesus was the son of God, denies the fact that he was crucified, denies the fact that he arose again, denies the fact that he can save people, but yet they tried to bring in these teachers who are very, I would say, uninformed about the true nature of Islam, to believing that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. And these teachers-
Gary Dull: Richard, let me ask you …
R. Thompson: … then go out into the classroom and teach their kids that same thing.
Gary Dull: Yeah. Let me ask you a question here about her specifically. Number one, what specific organization … Can you name the organization that she works for and where else is she spreading this deception about Islam or her organization’s about attacking Christianity across America? And really is there any pushback on her from Christian organizations or school boards?
R. Thompson: Well, first of all, there is no pushback. It’s sad to say that a lot of Christians are sitting on their hands afraid to do anything because there’ll be called intolerant or bigoted. And that’s a sad part. She is the face behind the organization called Cultural Links, a Michigan-based consultancy. And she describes herself on the website as an advocate of social justice, who encourages children to take pride in their identities. But one of the identities she does not take pride in or say this children should take pride in is America’s exceptionalism. So she is brought in as was indicated as a Trojan horse to destroy America from within. It is clear that the schools and teachers have become the greatest threat to the survival of America as a Judeo Christian nation. Because as we know, the philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next. And that’s where [crosstalk 00:17:21]
Dave Kistler: Dick, let me jump in and ask you … Dick, let me ask you this real quick because we’ve got just a couple of minutes. This is incredible information. I’m just wondering how this woman is allowed with a seeming understanding that she is protected legally and allowed to do this when someone like Gary or Sam or me or even you, if we tried this as a Christian in a public school setting, be it a high school, middle school, elementary school, or a college, we would immediately be escorted out and there would be a lawsuit filed against us. How is she able to do this and others able to do this?
R. Thompson: Well, that’s a very good question because there is a clear discrimination and double standard that is being used by not only the educational system but by our courts. They give free reign to Islam because they say it’s not really religious education, it’s teaching multiculturalism. Whereas if you look into the lesson plans, it’s all about teaching religion. So there is a discrimination that is in-built into the school system. We find that if a Christian even mentions the 10 commandments or the Bible or let’s say a Christian student repeat John 3:16, you’re right, they would be punished. They would be removed from class and a lawsuit would be filed. But Islam gets away with talking about the five pillars of faith, talking about the Shahada, the conversion creed, there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. They get away with everything, under the guise of multiculturalism in diversity. And-
Sam Rohrer: Dick, I’m going to want to talk to you just a little bit further about that because there are two aspects. One, people may be afraid to be accused of being Islamic board, that’s one thing. But you’ve got the judicial system, you have the legal system that says this is the law. How is that able to be applied so deferentially?
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Well, welcome back to Stand in the Gap. We’re at our midpoint now on a very, very important theme, Islam and public schools, threat to freedom. Our special guest, Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center. It’s a national profit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And they have been around for a long time defending issues of major importance to our freedom in this country. And we’re talking today about one specific example where Islamic Jihad or civilization Jihad, as we have said many times on this program, is one way that infiltration into this country is occurring, is actually finding its way now into the public schools. And are occurring where teachers are being instructed by trained Islamic propagandists about what Islam is not about and using that opportunity to undercut Christianity, undermine our constitution and to disparage anything that we would equate to a Judeo Christian world view.
So very, very critical because this could be happening, it actually could be happening in your public school in your community. When we get to the end of the program, we’re going to tell about some things that you can do to help in this regard. Now, as we move forward here right now, I’m going to shift just a little bit. In the last segment we talked a little bit about how is it possible that you can actually have enemy position to our constitution, to the declaration of independence, to our founding principles, to our judicial system? How is it possible that that actually can be done in a public school setting when in fact you couldn’t have a pastor stand up and say, “Let’s talk about the Bible in the setting of the school,” or anything of that type.
And before I go into the what is being taught, Dick take just literally just a minute, a minute and a half, no more because we need to move on. But literally, how is the judicial system, how does the law system permit one party, Christians and others to be attacked and allow Islam in this condition to go untouched and permitted? How is that actually physically possible?
R. Thompson: Well, I think they have a double standard. As you indicated, a Christian pastor could not go into school and say the things about Christianity that Muslim propagandist can say about Islam. Now, the question becomes you file your lawsuit, but you go in front of a district court judge who then is going to lean over backwards to find that the Islamic propagandist is doing everything constitutionally correct. We do have the establishment clause and under the establishment clause, the courts have said that one religion should not be promoted over another, but that we find that to be a nice statement. But in practice, the courts do not really apply that. In fact-
Sam Rohrer: All right, so Dick, just for the sake of it right now, you said, in part, we have a culture that’s afraid to be identified as Islamic, so people keep their mouth shut when they should be speaking up, number one. And number two, you’re defining, we have judges on the bench that are interpreting constitutional law wrongly. Is that basically what you’re saying?
R. Thompson: Yes.
Sam Rohrer: Okay. I’m going to leave it right there. Let’s go into what’s actually being said now. I’d like you to take and identify, you talked a little bit in the last segment, but just give me four bullet points. What basic pieces of ideology, what Islamic pieces of ideology, put that way, are being expressed, being taught to teachers in these kinds of settings? And you can put it from the standpoint of what they’re doing and what they’re attacking under a Judeo Christian perspective. Or maybe you want to lay it out in the perspective of what points of Judeo Christian mentality are being attacked. However you want to do that, give me just the top four if you could right now and then I’m going to come back and we want to build that out with you a little bit.
R. Thompson: One of the things that are being taught and were once being taught in one public school system was that most Muslim faith is stronger than the average Christian. And then the other point was that the students were being taught that Jihad is really a personal struggle in devotion to Islam involving spiritual discipline, when we know that that is certainly not the case in most instances. It is terrorist and warfare. They’re being taught the five pillars of faith, which are very important to becoming a Muslim, and yet the 10 commandments are prohibited from being displayed on school walls, even though they’re a passive display and no one is teaching about them, yet the court said that that is unconstitutional.
We are being told that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. At the same time, Christianity is disparaged as being one that has created violence in the various middle Eastern regions, especially during the crusades. So the whole deception that takes place is one of nuance and the courts normally excuse what the Muslims say on the basis of maybe it was really inartful, but it still does not arise to the point of being a violation of the establishment clause, which basically says you can’t promote one religion over the other.
Sam Rohrer: Okay, excellent. Excellent. Gary, want to follow up-
Gary Dull: It sure seems to me as though there is a dichotomy here that is not only unfair but unjust. You mentioned one thing there Richard, and that is that you said they teach that most Muslims students have a stronger faith than Christians students. What is the basis of that argument that they portray?
R. Thompson: Well, that was our point in the … This is a specific court case that we handled. That is a matter of opinion. It was not just students, it said most Muslims faith is stronger than the average Christian. That’s opinion. There is no way you can support that factually. It is not something that the schools should be teaching at all. It’s subjective, but yet the court in that particular instance said, “Well, maybe they shouldn’t have said it and maybe it was inartful, but that one instance is not enough to make a violation of the establishment clause. Because we were suing the teachers who put those PowerPoints on the board for students to learn, read and memorize for tests. In the same school that we had brought this lawsuit, a 11th grade student, who was Christian, refused to repeat the Shahada, there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah. She refused to say that because she said it’s a violation of my Christian faith.
The school said to her, “If you don’t repeat that, if you refuse to put that on a test, you will get a failing mark.” She took the failing mark. We again, filed as a part of our lawsuit against the school and the and the court just allowed it to go by saying, “Well, it doesn’t rise to the aspect of a violation of the establishment clause. She can repeat that Shahada, the conversion creed without really meaning it. And therefore, the school did not violate that law.” But you know what? If a student doesn’t want to say the pledge of allegiance, that student is allowed to not say the pledge of allegiance. But the courts don’t say, “Well, you have to say the pledge of allegiance because it doesn’t mean you believe in it.”
But here they made that distinction saying, “Well, you have to say the Shahada, even though you may not believe in it. It’s a part of your assignment.” And in this particular case, this young girl’s father was a former Marine who served in the first Persian Gulf war. And he was outraged when he heard his daughter had to say that. He in fact called the school and said, “You don’t allow students to say the 10 commandments. How come you’re allowing a teachers to teach them about the five pillars of faith and the Shahada?” The school still remained adamant and said, “If she doesn’t say it, she’s going to get a failing mark.” He told the school, “Give her the failing mark.” And the school-
Dave Kistler: Dick, let me jump in and ask you this. And the timing of this discussion is so pertinent because tomorrow is 911. It’ll be the 18-year anniversary where we commemorate what happened to us at the hands of people who adhere to the very ideology that we’re talking about. So Dick, you’ve talked about your filing of a lawsuit in this one situation. Do you see that there’s going to be any way that there’s going to be protections against this forthcoming because of your lawsuits or perhaps others by other organizations that you know defend religious and specifically Christian Liberty? Or are we on a downhill trajectory against which we’re not going to be able to resist?
R. Thompson: Well, sad to say right now I think we’re on a downhill trajectory. I don’t mean to give up on the issue because hopefully people will ultimately become clear about what Islam is all about. But right now, because of the fear that people have of being called bigoted or intolerant, they keep their mouths shut even when they know that a violation is occurring. They don’t want their children to be involved in a lawsuit because they’re afraid there’ll be some kind of retaliation. So Christians are sitting in their pews listening to their pastors speak, let’s say against Islam, but they’re not doing anything about it because of fear that there’s going to be some kind of repercussions.
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Sam Rohrer: Today on this program, we’ve attempted to, you could say it this way, sound the alarm. In other way, from a biblical perspective, to blow the trumpet standing on the wall, bringing to attention to Americans and to Christian and Patriots in this land, a very real threat to our religious and civil freedom. We’ve identified again, a very real and current stealth attack underway in our institutions of society. The goal is to destroy the very foundations of law and justice as we know it here under a Judeo Christian understanding and definition of law and truth, and justice and mercy and equity, which are the basis of law, and replace it with that would be Islamic Sharia law. Totally opposite. We’ve identified, again, as we have done many times on this program, the intent to replace the foundations of freedom with a very antichrist, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-constitution ideology called Islam. Which, by the mandates of the Quran itself cannot peacefully coincide with Judeo Christianity or the American declaration of independence or the American constitution. They are like oil and water. They’re mutually exclusive.
So really, the answer is what can we do? In the last segment, our special guests, Richard Thompson from Thomas More Law Center, was asked by Dave, are we on a downward trajectory? In other words, is the legal system moving at such a speed when it comes to permitting under our own law, Islam to be taught, to be encouraged even in our public school systems? At the same time, Christianity cannot be. The five pillars of Islam can be lifted up, the 10 commandments cannot even be posted. You can have an Islamic Jihadist with a hijab teaching our public school teachers and you cannot have a pastor come and talk about what God or the Bible says. So what do we do? And he basically answered that question that we’re on that downward track. So that’s why it’s important that we bring this up.
But when I thought about this, I thought of Isaiah 59:19 that says this, “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” So in this final segment we’re going to discuss just briefly what you and I, all of us together, individually all across this country can do to not remain silent, to open our mouth where we see things and to be part of that lifting up a standard against enemy ideologies that fight against God and freedom. So Dick, I’m going to go right there with you. We focused on primarily this one school district in Michigan where 400 teachers have been taught anti-Christian principles and very favorable Islamic principles.
You’ve also indicated though that it’s occurring all across the country. There are different organizations involved. You’ve identified as well that in part people are silent. They’re afraid to speak up less they be identified as Islamic phobic or however that may be. But on the other hand, you are also saying that if we do not stand up collectively, and I’m going to put in here, we will lose the right altogether to oppose. So what can our listeners, what can they do to help you and the Thomas More Law Center to oppose what is going on and to help you raise up that standard and counter, at least in the legal system, this ideology that seeks to destroy everything that we know and love in this country?
R. Thompson: Well, thank you. First of all, it’s important for your listeners, number one, to know what is going on in their children or grandchildren’s school. They not only must look at the textbook that is being used, but they have to look at the other lesson plans that are being proposed to the students. They have to look at the test and the quiz that the students are taking. If they find that there is this ingredient of Islamic propaganda where they’re promoting Islam, promoting the Shahada, the Islamic conversion creed, the five pillars of faith, they should then inquire about why that is being done with the school officials.
It should be done, not orally, but it should be done via email or in writing and ask for the school official to return a response in writing. If the school official does not give an adequate response and if the viewer or the listener feels that there is in fact Islamic propaganda going on that’s way beyond the confines of teaching about religion, but is actually teaching Islamic faith, then I encourage them to contact the Thomas More Law Center, give us the name of the school district. We will then file a freedom of information act request or a public records request and get to the bottom of exactly who these people are that are providing this kind of Islamic training and what documents they are using. And then we can proceed from there to see if there in fact is a violation of the law.
Now, what happens many times, as soon as we filed a freedom of information act request, the school realizes that a law firm is looking at them and they’ll back away. But it’s important for your listeners, number one, to know what is going on in their child or their grandchild’s school, inquire about it to the school officials, get some response in writing because many times they will change their response as soon as the legal action is brought.
Sam Rohrer: Okay Dick. Okay, that’s very important ladies and gentlemen, get it in writing. In this case, you ask for what’s going on. If you are aware of, again, talk to your students, talk to your neighbors and their students. However that is, grandparents, grandchildren. Find out, know what’s going on. Ask by letter, by email of the school authorities and have them put it in writing. And then you can get to Thomas Lawrence Law Center. So Dick, I want you to give your website right now. Where should people go? How should they actually get ahold of you?
R. Thompson: They should contact the Thomas More Law Center at thomasmore, one O in more,.org. Once they get on the website, there is a menu where they can ask for help. And all they have to do is present their name and what the issue is and then we have a committee that will look at it. If we feel that it is a case that may become a legal issue for us to litigate, we will then contact them. We’ll ask them further questions. And then as I said, we will file a freedom of information act request against the school finding out-
Sam Rohrer: Okay Dick, we’ve run out of time. Let me just ask you this, do you have on your website, for instance, recommended letters that people could send or do you give any kind of advice on how to put together a letter as an example?
R. Thompson: At this point we don’t, but that’s a good idea. We can develop some kind of inquiry that will get to the bottom of it. But it’s important to, again, get the information. And once we have that information then we can proceed. And I must say that all our legal services are without charge, so we will provide legal support, legal advice without charge to the citizen.
Sam Rohrer: All right, Dick, we thank you for being with us here on the program today. We are at the end. Give the website one more time quickly please.
R. Thompson: Www.thomasmore.org.
Sam Rohrer: All right, thomasmore.org ladies and gentlemen, be aware. Ask, look, put things in writing. Contact this Thomas More law center if you find about anything happening in your school district relative to this issue of Islam or anything frankly that appears to be unconstitutional and they will-
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