March 18, 2009

Statement to the Fairfax County Planning Commission on Special Exception to Zoning Restrictions for Expansion of Islamic Saudi Academy

Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)
https://www.realcourage.org
Statement by Founder, Jeffrey Imm

I am originally from Pennsylvania.  The first time that I came to Virginia was as a child on a trip with my parents to Virginia Beach.  I saw a sign on a boarding house there and asked them what it meant.  The sign read “white clientele only.”  I didn’t realize that people lived like that, and it was a lesson I’ll never forget. Virginia, Fairfax County, and the country have come a long way from the dark days when racial supremacist behavior was publicly accepted and tolerated.  It has come a long way from the days when the inalienable human rights of equality and liberty were publicly defied.  It did so, by embracing our shared responsibility for equality and liberty.  And it did so, by confronting those who defied such equality and liberty and who promoted supremacism and hatred.

Since then, we have seen supremacist organizations of all kinds adopt “religious” disguises for supremacism, hatred, and intolerance. The Free Exercise Clause of the American Constitution ensures that those claiming exercise of their religious beliefs are not singled out for discriminatory treatment — not that they have any different rights or responsibilities from other citizens.  So I ask you when considering the public welfare of granting a “special exception” to zoning for the Islamic Saudi Academy to expand its campus in Fairfax County, is it really any different in Virginia to have a business that will serve “white clientele only” from a business like the Islamic Saudi Academy with a history of teaching young people that Jews are apes and Christians are pigs?

Equality and liberty for all citizens must always be the priority of government bodies in considering the public welfare in its decisions.  Our responsibility for equality and liberty means that all citizens must challenge those who seek to institutionalize supremacism, intolerance, and hatred of any kind.

We know very well how such supremacism, intolerance, and hatred leads to those seeking violence. As the Washington Post has reported, the Islamic Saudi Academy “indoctrination begins in a first-grade text and is reinforced and expanded each year, culminating in a 12th-grade text instructing students that their religious obligation includes waging jihad against the infidel to ‘spread the faith.'” The children in Fairfax County, of the citizens you represent, not only deserve freedom from hate and supremacism, they also deserve freedom from fear.  They are counting on your courage today.  Thank you.

Responsible for Equality And Liberty

Jeffrey Imm, R.E.A.L. founder
https://www.realcourage.org