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the rest of the article:

He said the board acknowledged the prayer by Shane Tycer at the baseball game "and offered a lame explanation" that he took the microphone when the regular announcer was late. No school officials tried to stop him, nor has the board or superintendent repudiated the prayer, Cook said.

He said board members should be fined or go to jail "for their calculated un-American and immoral conduct to embarrass, hinder or obstruct the court in the administration of justice." The contempt motion was the latest development in a years-long legal battle over prayer at school functions in Tangipahoa, which is on the north side of Lake Ponchartrain across from New Orleans. The lawsuit, filed by a parent identified as John Doe on behalf of his children James and Jack Doe, originally included objections to prayers at Loranger High School football games.

That portion of the lawsuit was settled last year with an agreement that prayers would be dropped at games and other school events. Unsettled until recently was a challenge to public prayer at school board meetings. Berrigan ruled in February that school boards, unlike most government bodies, cannot hold public prayers.

Berrigan noted that school-sponsored prayers in classes or at other school functions have long been prohibited by federal courts as a violation of First Amendment guarantees against government-established religion. And, she said, school boards should come under the same stricture because they are integral parts of school systems: They set policy and oversee operations and sometimes involve students in board meetings.

Berrigan's ruling was lambasted by Gov. Kathleen Blanco among others and is being appealed.


3 posted on 04/05/2005 2:56:04 PM PDT by Ellesu
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To: Ellesu

Isn't an act of Free Speech by a student allowed? Or will we get the ACLU to sue the school board for infringing on the student's freedom of speech rights when they prohibit unsponsored religious expression?

I bet this BS would not be happening if it were a Muslim uttering a prayer that Allah kill all of the infidels in attendance at the game.


10 posted on 04/05/2005 3:07:58 PM PDT by PeterFinn (The Holocaust was perfectly legal.)
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To: Ellesu

Why is it they bring lawsuit after lawsuit and most get dismissed as frivilous, but then when they finally get a sypathetic judge, that one ruling is important but not the 10-20 other rulings that the case lacked any merit?

Reminds me of the federal law prohibiting posession of a weapon(firearm) within 1000' of a public school, ruled unconstitutional because it denied local residents the right to keep and bear arms (residents that lived or drove within 1000' of a school is just about anyone..) so they changed a couple words and passed new legislation that does exactly the same thing so someone has to now spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars and years to get through the system to prove the same law is still unconstitutional. In the mean time they are intentionally enforcing a law that is blatantly unconstitutional.


14 posted on 04/05/2005 3:16:22 PM PDT by logic ("All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing......")
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