Crosstalk: June 15, 2017

Martin Mawyer began his career as a freelance journalist resulting in his position as the editor-in-chief of Jerry Falwell's 'Moral Majority Report'. In 1990 he founded the Christian Action Network, a non-profit organization created to protect America's religious and moral heritage through educational and political activism efforts. He's the author of 4 books and 3 documentary films. His most recent book is, 'Twilight in America: The Untold Story of Islamic Terrorist Training Camps Inside America'.

This program centered on the subject of a program called Access Islam. Access Islam is a 10 point lesson plan funded by the Department of Education and made available to public schools throughout the U.S. Teachers can access the program through the PBS Learning Media site where a host of down-loadable educational programs for teachers can be obtained.

Martin doesn't consider Access Islam to be an academic lesson plan. Instead, he views it as religious indoctrination. He also described it as, '... a Sunday school class on how to become a Muslim, act like a Muslim, perform Muslim duties and to evangelize as a Muslim.'

He noted how after 9-11, our government decided we needed to educate school children on Islam. The thought was that the 9-11 terrorists were radicals and students didn't know much about Islam or that area of the world. The idea was to develop learning materials so students would have a better understanding of what happened, along with a better understanding of Islam and its history. The problem is that once something like this gets into the hands of activist groups, that seemingly benign goal, suddenly turns into something very dangerous in our public schools and that's what has happened.

Martin told listeners we've been seeing this trend since 9-11, and of all the Islamic education programs developed for public schools, he believes that Access Islam is by far, the most radical of them all.

What are the grade levels? Are liberal groups outraged by this apparent embracing of religion in public schools? Does this program have children working with verses of the Qur'an? These and other questions are answered when you review this vital edition of Crosstalk.