California Democrats are moving to put two Islamic holy days on the official state calendar — while giving public schools the green light to shut their doors and “celebrate” the religious observances in classrooms.
But apparently they had to call Christmas vacation “winter break” or the secular progressives would lose it.
Assembly Bill 2017 would designate Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as official California state holidays, authorize public school and community college closures on those days and allow schools to conduct exercises “acknowledging and celebrating the meaning and importance” of the Islamic holidays.
The bill passed the California Assembly by a staggering 64-1 vote in May and is now closing in on final passage. On Friday, the state Senate read the legislation for a second time and ordered it to a third reading, putting it within striking distance of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
The legislation was introduced by Democrat Assemblyman Matt Haney of San Francisco, with Democratic state Sen. Aisha Wahab serving as principal coauthor.
“California is home to one of the largest and most vibrant Muslim communities in the country, and their traditions deserve recognition and respect,” Haney said when announcing the legislation.
“No student should have to choose between celebrating one of the holiest days of their faith and showing up to school, and no worker should feel they have to sacrifice their religious observance,” he added.
AB 2017 would not automatically close every California school for Eid, nor would the two holidays become mandatory paid days off for every state employee.
Instead, state employees could elect to receive eight hours of holiday credit for Eid, similar to California's treatment of Diwali and Lunar New Year. Local K-12 districts and community colleges could close for Eid if their governing boards reach agreements with employee unions, while student absences for religious observance would be excused.
What the California Democrats plan to do in the classroom is even more perturbing. Schools choosing to observe the holidays would be permitted to hold exercises “acknowledging and celebrating the meaning and importance” of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, and the State Board of Education could develop a model curriculum for those exercises.
We already discussed that the Girl Scouts of America was partnering with Islamic groups to offer Muslim-themed badges. But Muslim leaders are not stopping there. It’s just the beginning.
It comes at the same time as left-wing school districts have spent years scrubbing explicit references to Christmas and Easter from calendars in the name of “religious neutrality.”
As Americans have been warning for years, it was never about removing “religion” from the public sphere. It was about removing Christianity.
“This is not about teaching, this is encouraging the celebration of a religious holiday,” California Family Council Vice President Greg Burt told Fox News Digital. “What happened to neutrality? It doesn't make any sense.”
The California Family Council argues that the legislation could effectively grant Islam preferential treatment, particularly when many school policies make an explicit distinction between teaching about a religion and celebrating its holidays.
The state's own Senate Education Committee disagreed, concluding that the legislation “does not authorize religious indoctrination” and noting that California law already permits instruction about religion when it is academically relevant rather than intended to promote religious belief.
But the organizations behind the legislation should alert every American that there is a lot more to this than simply “religious neutrality” or “celebrating diversity.”
Among the bill's supporters is the Council on American-Islamic Relations' California chapter, or CAIR-CA, which argues that Muslim students and employees are unfairly forced to choose between religious observance and their academic or professional responsibilities.
“AB 2017 removes the burden of choosing between one’s faith and academic or professional success,” CAIR-CA Legislative and Government Affairs Director Oussama Mokeddem said.
CAIR's involvement comes with considerable baggage. The organization has faced longstanding scrutiny over alleged historical connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, allegations CAIR strongly denies. During litigation stemming from the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing prosecution, a federal court found there was “ample evidence to establish” an association between CAIR and Hamas, although CAIR itself was never prosecuted in the case.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations under state authority last year, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis subsequently taking similar action. Those state designations do not amount to a federal terrorist designation of CAIR.
California, meanwhile, has cozied up to the designated extremist group.
A City Journal investigation reported earlier this year that the California Department of Social Services approved at least $41 million in funding to CAIR-CA over five years, much of it originating from federal funds. CAIR-CA said the grants were properly reported, audited, and used for their intended purposes, calling accusations against the organization part of a “defamation campaign.”
Now the organization is backing legislation that could put Islamic holidays on California's official calendar and authorize their celebration inside public schools.
So, does this mean California has finally embraced “Sharia law,” the way they have in Dearborn, Michigan? It boggles the mind, given the deep blue state has long posed as the champion of feminism and gay rights, two causes that are explicitly rejected by the Islamic faith.
How can "liberals" support an ideology that is fundamentally illiberal? It is the exploitation of their guiding principle of anti-bigotry and a twisting of it to mean the acceptance of illiberal worldviews.
This one-way "tolerance" toward Islam is tantamount to cultural seppuku, and that seems to be the American left's entire point.
At the same time, California spent years purging Christian references out of public education in the name of secular neutrality. Now its legislature is about to sign off on public schools adding curricula to “celebrate the meaning and importance” of two Islamic holy days.
Separation of church and state? Amazing. Separation of mosque and state? That’s for Christian infidels.
It’s enough to make you wonder if socialist Democrats have any principles at all, except to attack Western Christian culture and to advance any foreign ideology that achieves that.
After all, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” has long been the mantra of the American left going back to the Cold War. In the 1960s, radicals like Hanoi Jane Fonda rallied around the Vietcong. In the 1980s, Soviet apologists railed against Ronald Reagan.
Now, in post-9/11 America, we have the American left sticking up for Islamic extremists.
It’s enough to make you wonder: Whose side are they on, anyway?
Editor’s Note: Republicans are fighting for election integrity by requiring proper identification to vote. It's common sense, yet Democrats are spreading lies about the impact of such a measure.
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