Posted on 05/24/2005 5:16:26 AM PDT by bulldozer
KNOX,PA - A large crowd of Knox area community residents and religious leaders turned out Monday to show support for the Keystone School Board after it was dealt an order by the American Civil Liberties Union to stop a long-standing tradition of prayer at student graduations and school board meetings.
District officials have agreed to stop both activities, but legal representatives are continuing to research the issue.
Board president John Slagle said the district's latest correspondence from the ACLU's Pittsburgh chapter is to sign a consent decree as part of the order.
After hearing comments from the audience and following considerable board discussion on the issue, members voted unanimously to sign the decree and to have the board "do everything in its power to guarantee the rights of free speech to our students."
Slagle said the decree will force the district to pay associated fees to the courts.
He said the district faced substantial financial penalties that would be paid to the ACLU if the board refused to sign the document.
Slagle said the decree was handed down as a result of comments that have been made by some board members.
"Some of us have pressed the issue," he said.
ACLU officials told the district that "when public schools reserve time at a graduation ceremony for prayers, they violate the Constitution by putting the power, prestige and endorsement of the state behind whatever prayer is offered, no matter who offers it."
(Excerpt) Read more at thederrick.com ...
on the taxpayers dime too
We must be the only society in the world that taxes its citizens to finance its enemies.
Its unreal. Why is this allowed? Its time to take America back from the ACLU and from John McPain.
Since when? Are these dolts reading the same Constitution that I am? Is the US Constitution?
Amazing how the elimination of religion and the murder of the unborn are legal because; "The laws are very clear" but the 2nd... well that doesn't mean what it says.
Check out this link: Judge Roy Moore and the Myth of the Separation Clause
Why would financial penalties be paid to the ACLU? We need to have the names and addresses of these people be public knowledge.
How come the $ goes to the ACLU?
What did they do to deserve it?
here is the tell all on the ACLU from that link
It was on June 9, 1993 that ACLU member Joel Sogol wrote to then-chief justice of Alabama Sonny Hornsby, threatening to sue anyone who continued the time-honored tradition of praying in court. After Roy Moore took office in 1994 and refused to bring a halt to the tradition, the ACLU stepped up their threats of suit over the prayer and, in addition, began hyperventilating over the Ten Commandments plaque Justice Moore had placed in his courtroom. At the beginning of the third month of Justice Moore’s first term of office on March 31, 1995, the ACLU filed suit in U.S. district court against him on the basis that he had illegally imposed his religious beliefs on others in the courtroom, denouncing the prayer as “a religious test.”
The ACLU apparently didn’t feel up to suing all 550 members of Congress and all nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court who have always begun their daily proceedings with prayers. It may even be a sobering revelation to them that our very first president noted in his inaugural address that “no people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States.” Nevertheless, it is doubtful that such words would bear much significance to a pathetic, subversive gang of rogue lawyers who have nothing better to do with their time than to bully public officials out of acknowledging their creator and to throw childish temper tantrums over harmless little plaques.
The first one posted on FR dated 5/20/05 is located here:
ACLU Puts Local District on Notice (Knox,PA)
This is the first posted & dated 5/19/05 located here:
Keystone board warned to stop prayers
Okay I see now. The whole ACLU suing over prayer is really an extortion racket. This group is a home grown terrorist organization.
You can help stop the ACLU by contacting your representatives to support the following:
Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., filed a measure to amend the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. Section 1988, to prohibit prevailing parties from being awarded attorneys fee in religious establishment cases, but not in other civil rights filings. If you want to corral the ACLU, then consider a letter or email to your Congressman urging them to cosponsor this legislation.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.