Virginia School System closes for the day over threats bc of Islam homework

[BmorePat87]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/18/us/virginia-school-shut-islam-homework/index.html

So in a World Geography class, a teacher covers religions of the world. In the Islam lesson, there is an assignment from a third party test book. It has students attempt to copy some arabic calligraphy to see how complicated it is. The phrase was the Muslim statement of faith ("There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah.").

Side note: as a teacher, I would not have had them write this, but rather some random phrase instead. That's actually what the principal said they will change this assignment to in the future.

Anyways, parents believed this was an attempt to convert their kids to Islam. There were a lot of angry parents demanding that the teacher be fired. Then the calls and emails came in... many from outside the area and many targeting the class. Law enforcement and the school system took these threats and decided they needed to close school for the day.

What makes people so irrational when it comes to religion? The school board's solution was absolutely reasonable, yet the threats come in?