Imagine the uproar if a public high school choir attempted to sing a song about Jesus that included the lyrics, “He is the way, the truth, and the life.” The left wing atheists and secularists would scream bloody murder while insisting that the separation of church and state is at grave risk. Would such objections be labeled racist?

Enter James Harper, a high school senior who had a problem with singing a song which heaped similar praise on Islam’s Allah.

Via Fox News:

A Colorado high school student says he quit the school choir after an Islamic song containing the lyric “there is no truth except Allah” made it into the repertoire.

James Harper, a senior at Grand Junction High School in Grand Junction, put his objection to singing “Zikr,” a song written by Indian composer A.R. Rahman, in an email to Mesa County School District 51 officials. When the school stood by choir director Marcia Wieland’s selection, Harper said, he quit.

“I don’t want to come across as a bigot or a racist, but I really don’t feel it is appropriate for students in a public high school to be singing an Islamic worship song,” Harper told KREX-TV. “This is worshipping another God, and even worshipping another prophet … I think there would be a lot of outrage if we made a Muslim choir say Jesus Christ is the only truth.”

In one of the most blatant displays of dhimmitude, the spokesman for the district doubled down in the face of Harper’s courage:

But district spokesman Jeff Kirtland defended the decision to include the song.

“Choral music is often devoted to religious themes. … This is not a case where the school is endorsing or promoting any particular religion or other non-educational agenda. The song was chosen because its rhythms and other qualities would provide an opportunity to exhibit the musical talent and skills of the group in competition, not because of its religious message or lyrics,” Kirtland told FoxNews.com in an email while noting that the choir “is a voluntary, after-school activity.”

For the record, the song “Prayer of the Children” was written by a Mormon missionary and doesn’t include nearly the same reference to Jesus that the Islamic song, Zikr does to Allah.

Here are the lyrics to Prayer of the Children:

Can you hear the prayer of the children?
On bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room
Empty eyes with no more tears to cry
Turning heavenward toward the light

Crying jesus, help me
To see the morning light-of one more day
But if i should die before i wake,
I pray my soul to take

Can you feel the hearts of the children?
Aching for home, for something of their very own
Reaching hands, with nothing to hold on to,
But hope for a better day a better day

Crying jesus, help me
To feel the love again in my own land
But if unknown roads lead away from home,
Give me loving arms, away from harm

Can you hear the voice of the children?
Softly pleading for silence in a shattered world?
Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate,
Blood of the innocent on their hands

Crying jesus, help me
To feel the sun again upon my face,
For when darkness clears i know you’re near,
Bringing peace again

Dali cujete sve djecje molitive?
(croatian translation:
‘can you hear all the children’s prayers?’)
Can you hear the prayer of the children?

In the name of fairness, the school is attempting to equate asking Jesus for help with praising Allah as the only god? That’s a difference without a distinction. Still no word on when Kirtland will be approving a song written around John 14:6.

h/t Jihad Watch