American school children brainwashed

A Florida pastor's plan to burn copies of the Quran ? originally scheduled for Saturday , the anniversary of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks ? has been the subject of heated debate around the country, across the globe and in classrooms of a Northeast Baltimore school.

A group of students from City Neighbors Charter School gathered on Belair Road at Glenmore Avenue early Friday morning to protest in favor of tolerance. They shouted and waved signs urging drivers to hit their horns to support religious freedom ? and motorists obliged.

"It was really good to see some Americans still want this to be America, a freedom-filled country," said Molli McKinney, a 12-year-old eighth-grader who helped organize the protest.
About 15 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders held signs with slogans such as "Muslims are people too" and "Honk for Religious Freedom" from 7:30 a.m. until just before their first class began at 8:15 a.m.

"This is trying to show that Americans don't all stand with Reverend [Terry] Jones," said City Neighbors social studies teacher Peter French.

The theme of his class this year is "dangerous ideas." As the students debated whether a Muslim center should be built near the World Trade Center site in New York, the Quran-burning controversy arose.

Motivated by the uproar, several children met at lunch to make signs for the protest. They also wrote a letter to Jones, urging him to cancel his event. They faxed the letter, with 82 student and parent signatures, to the minister Friday after their protest.

"We are all against burning the Quran because we think it's disrespectful," said eighth-grader and protest organizer Lucy Bull, 13.

Leaders of Muslim and other religious communities in Maryland also spoke out about the Quran burning.

Anwer Hasan, a board member of the Maryland Muslim Council and a former Howard County Muslim Council president, said Jones' actions could be misinterpreted abroad. "People here understand that he has only 50 people in support," he said. "But somebody 10,000 miles away has no idea and thinks it's the whole American society."

By contrast, Irfan Malik, a Howard County businessman and Muslim community leader, had worries closer to home. He said he and other Muslims fear that the Jones incident could be the start of a renewed trend toward intolerance of Muslims in the United States.