The short of it: on behalf of some complainants Jerry Fawell’s Liberty University sued a school that had a “Friday flyer” program for kids to take home group information, so as to allow Christian camps and such to advertise. Broken clock is right twice a day and all that, and they rightly won.
However, now that another group has sent home information about pagan festivals via the same legal rationale, there is a raft of conservatives and Christianists up in arms about it. My favorite is the pastor who declares that the freedom for non-Christians to advertise instead of just Christians is why the public school system should be abandoned altogether.
I have a friend that goes there and yeah the school is ridiculous. You are not allowed to watch rated R movies or drink alcohol and a bunch of other ridiculou stuff. Check out their Code of Conduct:
*Entering entryway of opposite sex on campus or allowing the same - 6 Reprimands + $25 Fine
Spending the night with a person of the opposite sex - 30 Reprimands + $500 Fine + 30 hours Disciplinary Community Service + possible Administrative Withdrawal.*
Doesn’t seem right that they have reprimands, but not commendations.
They should divide the school into Houses (Falwell, Robertson, Graham, Bakker, and Phelps), and keep track of which House accumulates the most “points,” if you will, with the highest-ranking House winning some sort of prize at the end of the school year.
One of my classmates did her undergraduate at Liberty. She’s really a smart girl, but four years at Liberty didn’t do much for her ability to think for herself.
Interesting that the Pagans were from the local Unitarian Universalists; small revenge for the (perhaps apocryphal) time when a group on stealth fundamentalist Christians joined a UU congregation until they had a voting block large enough to sell the church for a trivial amount and close it down.
In the interests of accuracy and precision, it should be noted that the pastor in the story calls for the public school system to be abandoned by Christian families in favor of homeschooling and private Christian schools.
Just so nobody thinks the pastor advocated a policy of the state getting out of the public education business altogether. I realize that, practically speaking, there would be little to distinguish between the two outcomes, but still…
You really can’t reason with people like this, to them asking why it should be ok for Christians to advertise but not for Pagans is like asking someone why its ok to have sex with an 19 year old but not a 9 year old. To them one is simply wrong and can’t be allowed while the other is perfectly normal, i just love hearing about smack downs like this.
I’m thinking they probably got that one covered with the IMORALITY clause. Unless of course prayer ensued and one of the same sex individuals was a reverend, then it’s
“30 Reprimands”. Heh. I envision somebody, probably the Dean, saying, “Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again. Never do that again.”
