Posted on 09/24/2002 11:22:47 PM PDT by Kwilliams
No, I would never argue such a silly thing!! Because I don't need to. Our founding fathers settled that already. ..The Constitution of the United States of America singles out religion very clearly, giving religious exercise "special" treatment:
""Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;""
Free speech on school grounds is not at issue here. This is about the "right" of the Oxford Baptist Church of Oxford, N.C. to post a passage from the Christian book of Corinthians on River Bend Middle School's athletic field.
There's no allegation that religious speech has been barred from the school grounds. I agree that the right to free speech applies as much to speech on school property as anywhere else (subject to the usual "fire in a crowded theater" exceptions and other traditional restrictions that have been encoded in law over the years). An important point to bear in mind is that schools can prohibit any non-student from entering school property. Only students have a "right" to access school property, and even they can be expelled.
For what it's worth, I would like to point out that I fully support prayer in public schools -- it should not be suppressed -- but I vehemently oppose having teachers or other school officials leading prayers. There are plenty of fine private religious schools where that would be wholly appropriate, but government schools have no business dictating religion to students.
Meanwhile, regarding the topic of this thread, posting signs on school grounds opens up an entirely different can of worms.
Religious Symbols in Public Places is a web page that discusses some of the issues of religion and public property. One of the things discussed is what they call the "Lemon Test".
The US Supreme Court's "Lemon Test"
Government action violates the Establishment Clause unless it:
1. Has a significant secular (i.e., non-religious) purpose,
2. Does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and
3. Does not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion.
Note: Consensus over the appropriateness of using the Lemon test has broken down since Allegheny. Only four members of the current Court favor applying the test in its old form--and they only in certain types of cases. Justice O'Connor, in what she calls a "refinement" of the second prong of the Lemon test, would focus on whether the action challenged causes reasonable person to conclude that government has endorsed either a particular religion or religion in general. Justice Kennedy would not find an Establishment Clause violation--at least in prayer cases--without evidence of at least indirect coercion to affirm religious beliefs. Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist are even less inclined to find Establishment Clause violations, generally limiting them to cases of direct coercion of religious affirmation.
Agree with it or not, this is somewhat current Supreme Court opinion on religion and public property.
As I have stated in other posts on this thread, I do take issue with the promotion of one religion over another in a public school, but also take issue with the promotion of other private agendas as well, and believe that the best policy for River Bend Middle School is to find a better way to raise funds than to plaster ads on their athletic field.
I also agree that religious expression should not be more restricted than any other form of expression. To that end, the Alliance Defense Fund has a good point in its lawsuit. But I don't think this lawsuit is going to help students in any way, and is more hurtful than righteous.
Oxford Baptist Church has the right to sue to avoid discrimination on religious grounds. I would prefer, however, that they do something more constructive than attempt to bankrupt the school that offended them.
Does the Establishment Clause give license to religions to post signs on public school property? How about if I spraypaint "Jesus is Lord" on a school wall? "They call it vandalism, I call it freedom of religion?"
Anyway, there are endless volumes of opinion, law and precedent on the overall "Church and State" conundrum. I'm specifically interested in this case, and the issue of selling ad space in public school property.
Religious ads flame fiery rhetoric from all quarters, but I still consider the real issue to be the appropriateness of public schools selling ad space at all.
Imal - Several thoughts: First, if religious expression should not be more restricted than other forms, AND the school invites people to pay to express themselves, there is no rationale to restrict the religious speech. Second, if you're worried about 'offense,' you shouldn't be. If Pepsi can advertise for its soft drink (which is actually offensive to me, since we don't like our kids drinking tooth-rotting soda), why should a church not advertise for God? Where speech is free, offense is guaranteed. (It's actually liberals, these days, with their ridiculous attempts to stife free speech on abortion, homoesexuality, etc. etc. that are the biggest threat to free speech in our country.) Third, your belief that schools shouldn't do this, out of concern for kids, is entirely misplaced. Most thinking people want their kids exposed to many ideas - so that kids can learn to sort them out (with the help of their parents). We live in one of the most religious countries in the world. To try and hide that fact, out of some anti-religious prejudice, from kids growing up is absurd. Free debate about all things is beneficial to kids. Please, you and the anti-free thought police don't need to protect me or my kids from what people want to say on a billboard. However, you are free to make your free speech case to the Board of Ed, and to try and convince them that the message that doing things for the glory of God is harmful to kids; 4) This IS a case of deep-seated anti-religious prejudice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. To say that vandalising a school is somehow comparable to placing a religious advertisement (for the glory of God) at the invitation of a school to post such advertisements is absurd.
Imal - Several thoughts: First, if religious expression should not be more restricted than other forms, AND the school invites people to pay to express themselves, there is no rationale to restrict the religious speech.
I agree. There should be no special restrictions on religious speech. For the school to invite advertisers to its athletic field and then exclude churches is setting themselves up for exactly the kind of lawsuit they now face.
Second, if you're worried about 'offense,' you shouldn't be. If Pepsi can advertise for its soft drink (which is actually offensive to me, since we don't like our kids drinking tooth-rotting soda), why should a church not advertise for God? Where speech is free, offense is guaranteed. (It's actually liberals, these days, with their ridiculous attempts to stife free speech on abortion, homoesexuality, etc. etc. that are the biggest threat to free speech in our country.)
Although I have mentioned such things as the promotion of one religion over another in public schools (which is a legitimate concern), and the discretion of school officials in deciding what is or isn't appropriate to post on public school property (which I support in general, although these officials clearly blew it), I agree that if a school is going to sell ad space on its buildings, it should not allow Pepsi to advertise while excluding churches. In this case, the school's administration apparently realized the "sensitive nature" of religious advertising on school facilities without realizing that any ads on a school is itself a major problem.
Third, your belief that schools shouldn't do this, out of concern for kids, is entirely misplaced. Most thinking people want their kids exposed to many ideas - so that kids can learn to sort them out (with the help of their parents). We live in one of the most religious countries in the world. To try and hide that fact, out of some anti-religious prejudice, from kids growing up is absurd. Free debate about all things is beneficial to kids.
I believe that schools shouldn't do this, but not out of "concern for kids", so your contention that I have such a belief is false, and I am curious as to how you came to this conclusion from any post I have ever made anywhere on this forum. Perhaps my concerns about this lawsuit costing the school more money than the fundraiser could have possibly generated led you to this erroneous conclusion. Repeatedly on this thread I have had to counter false assumptions about my point of view, which is clearly expressed in my posts. Please respond to what I actually write, rather than put words in my mouth. I'm not going to take up somebody else's argument.
Please, you and the anti-free thought police don't need to protect me or my kids from what people want to say on a billboard. However, you are free to make your free speech case to the Board of Ed, and to try and convince them that the message that doing things for the glory of God is harmful to kids;
You and AppyPappy must have been members of the same debate club. Lumping me together with "the anti-free thought police" is an ad hominem attack. The statement is insulting in its entirety, and has nothing to do with anything I've posted here, just some straw man argument you seem to prefer to make, rather than addressing the real topic. I've already written at length about why such attacks are inappropriate on the forum, and that I won't buy into such nonsense.
4) This IS a case of deep-seated anti-religious prejudice.
I think you may be right about this, although the school officials may be more worried about lawsuits and less about quashing religious expression. Yes, they're being sued for not allowing religious ads at the athletic field. If they would have posted the ad, then they would probably be getting sued for doing that, too.
Hence my opinion that this was not a very good idea to begin with.
Do you really expect me to believe that you cannot tell the difference between child molestation and Christianity? That perhaps Child Molestation is a criminal enterprise and Christianity is a religious one? You must have been raised in public schools and have no idea on the requirements for creating a society instead of a wolf pack. Political correctness has erased your mind.
When a moral belief code is supressed by a governmental entity you have tyranny. This is very clear. When child rape is justified as some "other form of expression" you have moral tyranny. Woe to those who would call good evil and evil good...
No, I don't expect you to believe that, which is what makes your question so patently absurd. Are you interested in discussing the topic of this thread, or making ridiculous assumptions about me as a person? I DO expect you to believe that I am getting tired of responding to senseless bombast and personal attacks.
That perhaps Child Molestation is a criminal enterprise and Christianity is a religious one? You must have been raised in public schools and have no idea on the requirements for creating a society instead of a wolf pack. Political correctness has erased your mind.
You act like you know a lot about me for someone who clearly knows nothing about me. This sort of tirade does, however, reveal a lot about you. For one thing, it demonstrates that you are either unable or unwilling to discuss this topic without stooping to childish personal attacks.
How embarrassing for you.
When a moral belief code is supressed by a governmental entity you have tyranny. This is very clear. When child rape is justified as some "other form of expression" you have moral tyranny. Woe to those who would call good evil and evil good...
That's a fabulous collection of aphorisms. It would be more impressive if it had something to do the issue described in post #1.
I'll be very happy to take up the actual topic of this thread, if you're willing and capable of addressing it. So far, you are failing to convince me that you will.
Save the insults for IRC, alt.flame or the schoolyard. They don't impress me or anyone else who understands what the Free Republic stands for.
Regarding the cause for action in this case: despite my general distaste for lawsuits, I agree that the ADF has legitimate grounds. To permit commercial ads on school property while barring churches is definitely a discriminatory practice, and although church and state should be kept separate, there is a major difference between separation and discrimination. Whether this discrimination was motivated by anti-religious sentiment or fear of a lawsuit by the ACLU for allowing a religious ad isn't clear to me.
But I still think it should be rendered moot by eliminating this trainwreck of a fundraiser altogether, because: a) it is costing more than it's raising, and b) there is no other way to resolve this without getting sued, either by the ADF, or by the ACLU.
The fact that there is a lawsuit taking place is an indication that someone screwed up somewhere, as this sort of thing should NOT be that hard to resolve out of court. I hope the ADF offered the school a chance to straighten things out before filing this complaint in court.
Ultimately, this is emblematic of the tragic trend in American schools that has school officials spending more time trying to cover their butts than educate children.
As an aside, I regret that there were so many cross exchanges on this thread, especially since I don't think our positions on this issue are as different as they may seem at first blush.
For the record, this is quite possibly the most hypocritical post I've ever seen in a FR thread. You claim that a post that sarcastically speculated about my education, ability to distinguish child molestation from Christianity and contained the phrase "Political correctness has erased your mind" was "about the thread", then continue to launch into an insulting tirade complaining about my supposed self-centeredness.
And then, the ironic coup de grace:
In short, you are an example of someone who thinks the world is all about you. Thank you for illustrating my point so succinctly.
Stunning. I hope you can see what's going on here. The greatest irony lies in how succinctly you illustrated my point. Short of going through step-by-step grammatical analysis, I can't imagine how this could be any more obvious.
For someone whom you allege to be so self-centered, I've gone to extraordinary lengths to focus discussion away from me personally and back onto the topic, as the thread plainly documents, and have suffered repeated insults in the process, including the very post I'm responding to now. Incredible.
In fact, the examples in this thread are so stark that I have archived it as an example to which I may refer others. What remains to be seen is whether or not my efforts to keep the discussion focused on topic were worthwhile. Sometimes pointing out the obvious is enough to derail some trains of thought.
Anyway, as I pointed out in my post #51, I don't think our positions on the topic of this thread are all that different. But it's crystal clear that we have very different ideas about what constitutes polite, relevant, topical discussion.
If you're curious, here's where I look for guidance regarding Free Repulic posts. Please check it out, as I have already spent as much time and space on this issue as I care to. I'm still interested in the topic, but any further flames are going to /dev/null.
Finally, also for the record, I am very much aware that the world doesn't revolve around me. But this thread, and all other FR threads, should revolve around the topic. Refraining from personal attacks will help that happen.
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