Posted on 01/27/2012 9:39:09 AM PST by lilyramone
A federal judge ruled this month that the prayer's presence at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional, concluding that it violated the principle of government neutrality in religion. In the weeks since, residents have crowded school board meetings to demand an appeal, Jessica has received online threats and the police have escorted her at school, and Cranston, a dense city of 80,000 just south of Providence, has throbbed with raw emotion.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.nytimes.com ...
“Heavenly Father” is not “secular.” I think the word you’re looking for is “ecumenical.”
As to whether posting it prominently in an institution funded by tax dollars constitutes “establishment of religion...”
Lots of people get pissed off when gays shove their lifestyles in people’s faces, so surely such people can see the analogy here.
“never memorialized in any official government document.”
It was in Stalin’s government.
We need to be able to say the word God or Creator in schools since it is where our Natural Rights come from and HAS TO BE TAUGHT to EVERY CHILD. It is written in our Founding Documents and God’s Standards are the basis of ALL our Rights. (supposed to be instead of barney frank’s standards of what are Rights).
This saying “God” never establishes any religion and the whole Marxist “separation” is only infiltration into our legal system which denies the Natural Rights of every person to express religious belief in the public square. We are supposed to be able to do that—it is the basis of the First Amendment Rights.
She chose to through court action force her values upon the entire town. If the town chooses to ostracize her for her actions she has no one to blame but her own self. After all it appears that its all about her.
For my part I hope all the town businesses refuses service to her and her parents and they refuse to associate with her. You are known by the company you keep.
Ah, yes, Stalin - the paragon of freedom, liberty and good governance.
But, Stalin wasn't part of the conversation, we were talking about prayers in an American public school and the belief that there is a Constitutional constraint requiring the separation of church and state. Unless I fell asleep and missed something, Stalin wasn't any part of that.
“State Representative Peter G. Palumbo, a Democrat from Cranston, called Jessica “an evil little thing””
Man, things are interesting up there when a DEMOCRAT calls a spade a spade.
“This is the reason that as long as I have the ability to do it, my children will not see the inside of a public classroom.”
That is until it’s either paying tuition, or buying that plasma, or that yacht...or those granite counter tops. Admit it, you cannot resist the temptation of ‘free’ education.
Actually, I’m sure you can, since you’re committed to it (as I am too). It just may mean living in a smaller house, or, heaven forbid, an apartment, during those critical years when junior is being formed into a person.
Best wishes and you will NEVER regret it.
Ah, your barking up the wrong tree there. I pay now for my children's tuition to a private Christian school. As for my own education, I haven't been in a public school since the 10th grade.
It is not in OUR Constitution—it was in Stanlin’s. That was my point that you miss.
We have freedom From government intrusion-—they shall make NO LAW... Read the text below-—it says Congress is prohibited from making “laws” that prohibit the free exercise of religion.
That means in the public square and public buildings especially. The Founders allowed government buildings for church services ALL the time and said prayers ALL the time and in ALL the schools—Christian ones, by the way. That shows their intent by the First Amendment—much more than an obscure letter misrepresented by Marxists.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Good point. The judges have been hostile to our freedom of religion. And in doing so they are forcing Atheism which is also a “religion” by definition. We have NO freedom of religion when they are forcing theirs in the public square and schools. They shall make NO LAWS restricting our freedom of religion and since the 50’s they have been on a rampage-—since the founding of ACLU by the communist—forcing Atheism in the public square. Forcing their religion on our children.
Ok, susie, you obviously didn’t get my point. The discussion had nothing to do with Stalin or the Soviet Union. It had everything to do with public schools in the United States and whether or not there is a provision in the US Constitution about the separation of church and state.
You brought Stalin in out of the blue and tried to sidetrack the discussion, as you continue to do. You don’t need to quote the Constitution to me, when I was in school they still taught it and, in turn, I have taught it to others. So, I think I have the Constitution, the Amendments and a lot of the coinciding malarkey down pretty well.
Now that we have exchanged our barbs, I think that we both agree what the Constitution says versus what the corrupt political elites have done.
It is always necessary to know WHERE the ideas originate. Although that term WAS written in an obscure latter of Jefferson-—it was Stalin who employed that idea before it was forced into our jurisprudence.
It is necessary to understand ideas, who used them—and what was the consequence. We have seen the consequence of separation of Church and State-—in Stalin’s government.
It is the best example we have and should scare us to death-—and make us kick out the corrupt judges and our schools which look like they belong in the Soviet Union.
This discussion has everything to do with Atheism and Stalin and Marxist judges.
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I agree with savagesusie. I also wonder how much her parents had to do with this. Sounds like many in the town are seriously angry. Good.
>> was unconstitutional, concluding that it violated the principle of government neutrality in religion.
That’s not neutrality, idiot.
It is impossible to have a religiously neutral education.
Allowing school prayer is not religiously neutral for all those **forced** to be subjected to it.
Disallowing school prayer is not religiously neutral for all those who are forbidden to freely exercise their religion.
THERE IS NOT SOLUTION for this conflict in government owned and run schools!
Solution: Begin the process of privatizing all K-12 education. What is needed is complete separation of school and state!
Children are in godless government socialist-entitlement schools under state **compulsion**! They are not free to reject or accept the message, or remove themselves.
Government schooling never was, never has been, is not now, or every will be religiously neutral. Why? Because a religiously neutral education is impossible!
At the moment the religion of godless secular humanism is the religion being established by all government K-12 schools in this nation. I anyone knows of an exception please send a link.
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She has received threats? Prove who they came from or if they are even real. We know their tactic is to sully us with fabricated, nameless “attacks”. If they cannot prove that these so called attacks actually came from the opposition then they need to stop reporting this as fact.
I couldn't agree more. Today, I am not sure that we haven't allowed our governmnt to stray so far that we can simply pull it back from outrageous liberalism by just expressing our voice at the ballot box. These past 3+ years have taught us nothing if we have failed to see that the people we hire to represent our wishes to the federal government have become so drunk with power that it has made them selectively deaf to the majority. Too many people are suckling at the government's teat and are unwilling to be weaned. If politicians are anything, they are political cowards unwilling to take a stand on anything and stick to it if it goes against the wishes of what my dad used to call "the squeaky wheel". Their re-election is more important to them than the future of America. As much as I hate the idea, we may have no choice in the foresseable future but to hit ctrl+alt+del on the government and reset everything back to what the Founding Fathers envisioned.
America, today, is NOT the land of freedom and opportunity they envisioned 200+ years ago. Corrupt politicians and a corrupt judicial system have perverted and trampled the Constitution to the extent that it is unrecognizable. We are a nation whose political elites pass laws, regulations and ordinances to make it appear that they are doing something to justify their jobs and bloated salaries and perks. In truth, if all those laws could be enforced, we would be the most oppressed people on earth.
Let me leave you with this thought: Today, we have well in excess of 20,000 gun laws actively on the books. . . . . . and NONE of them will prevent the next gun crime. The laws our political elites create are written to control the law-abiding people, NOT the criminals.
I love your post and agree with everything you expressed so eloquently, except for the part about Stalin. We disagree on that. But I concede that sometimes I just assume people are on the same wavelength, when I shouldn’t, but then that is why this is a discussion board. Thanks for your post!
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