Students Face Discipline For Offering Bible Message

Boston Globe ^ | 1/1/03 | Michele Kurtz

[marshmallow]

Several Westfield High School students who handed out candy canes with religious note to their classmates the week before Christmas are bracing for possible suspension from school after they return from winter break tomorrow.

The students, who were forbidden by school administrators to distribute the candy and messages, are accusing school officials of violating their rights to free speech and expression.

[RoseofTexas]

It's time to bombard this school with E-mails!! Can anyone here supply an email address to this STUPID communist school??

[Cagey]

But, it's just fine for the school to.......

QUESTION 79: My school hands out condoms. If kids are going to have sex, isn't it important for them to practice safe sex?

Handing out condoms in school—especially without any counseling and without parents' consent—gives students no inducement to do any serious thinking about sexual activity and its risks.

Much sex education today is aimed at making sexual activity a common experience devoid of deep meaning. Sex educators are worried that teens tend to treat sex as passionate, romantic, meaningful—that they get swept away by their feelings. These educators believe that teens are more likely to use birth control and condoms if sex is treated clinically, stripping it of its meaning.

Sex without significance. No commitment, no emotional involvement, simple animal pleasure.

[M-cubed]

''We will do whatever the handbook says.''...Yup!...No brainer!...suspend them!....Now the lawsuit will be about the policy....not your responsibility as an Administrator..

[Tax Government]

It's a free spech issue, pure and simple. The school has no business preventing students from distributing literature of any kind.

[ardara]

It is great to see that the students have been offered counsel.The secularist ACLU no longer has a monopoly in the area of religious freedom in the schools. I predict that the ACLU will suffer significant defeats in the area of students' religious freedom in 2003.

[TightSqueeze]

Sex without significance. No commitment, no emotional involvement, simple animal pleasure.

The essence of the zipless phuch.

[Hebrews 11:6]

''We do not allow students to distribute non-school curriculum or activity-related literature of any kind directly to other students on school grounds,'' Superintendent Thomas McDowell wrote....''We do not single out students based upon the content of their message, in this or any other instance...''

The school is entirely within its rights, under settled US Supreme Court constitutional law, to make and enforce this policy; very good and defensible reasons could prompt such a policy. If this was already established as policy, rather than being made-up in response to this incident, then the kids were out-of-line.

Christians are called by Romans 13 to obey civil authorities except where the laws contradict God's laws; as Jesus said, give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. This tension between evangelism and obedience to law, both of which God commands, is easily resolved: hand out the candy canes out on the sidewalk. Don't be a scofflaw and thereby bring Jesus into disrepute.

[Guillermo]

The ACLU would be defending the students if they had of been passing out Mohammedan literature, or "environmental" literature, pro abortion literature, etc.

[NetValue]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech...."

Seems clear enough. Why does government make us fight them for guaranteed rights which it is supposed to uphold for all citizens?

[f.Christian]

Creation/God...REFORMATION(Judeo-Christianity)---secular-govt.-humanism/SCIENCE---CIVILIZATION!

Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!

Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY(pc/liberal/govt-religion/rhetoric)...

Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 LIBERAL NEO-Soviet Darwin/ACLU America---the post-modern PC-EVO age!

[cyncooper]

They requested permission to pass out the candycanes and it was denied. They did it anyway and then evidently went to the media to trumpet the fact and garner the attention of the administration, since the one fellow says he learned of it from the paper. Sounds to me like the students are enjoying a little "in your face" rather than sincerely spreading a message.

[mlmr]

This is an after school club. They were within the rules.

[SC Swamp Fox]

You are correct.

I hope you have your flame-retardant suit on.

[Kuksool]

The school is singling out the students, because they are promoting a Christian message. The educrats wouldn't have a problem with the club promoting the pro-feminist, pro-homosexual, and pro-environmental agenda. The NEA should be classified as an anti-Christian hate group.

[B Knotts]

I'm fairly certain that after a reasonable investigation, the school will be found to have allowed other students to distribute literature on other topics.

[gitmo]

You vill learn vhat vw vant you to learn, and nothing else. And you vill like it!

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Westfield High School

[ardara]

The ACLU has also gotten a lot of false information into many school systems.For instance, I know that the New YORK City public school authorities distribute circulars in the area of students' religious freedom that go against Federal Court decisions. This is going to change.

[pjd]

We do not allow students to distribute non-school curriculum or activity-related literature of any kind

The article states that this was the school Bible Club. Hence, it is a scool-related activity. So even the school's policy upholds the student's right to pass out the literature.