How do you know this? If you mean they shouldn’t be putting a Christian bias on what they do, yes, but how do you know this happened inpractice?
Yer pal,
Satan
*TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Six months, three weeks, one day, 22 hours, 25 minutes and 59 seconds.
8237 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,029.67.
Extra time with Drain Bead: 4 weeks, 14 hours, 25 minutes.
David B used me as a cite!*
Some would argue that, I imagine, but they’re probably the same ones who tried to get Magic: The Gathering banned. Elves are tools of the devil, didn’t you know that?
Danielinthewolvesden said:
I don’t think it’s at all apparent that the girl wrote or said anything of the sort. She wrote fictional horror stories in imitation of Stephen King, who has also written a story about a boy bringing a gun to school. Fiction is fiction, and I hardly think that creative writing of any genre can or should be interpreted as a threat. Furthermore, she “admitted” to practicing witchcraft and casting a spell to make a teacher sick under what looks to be duress, which also can’t seriously be taken as the same thing as “I hate you and want to harm you.” This is, of course, assuming that the girl’s side of the story is true.
I apologize again for bringing the Christian reference into this. I wasn’t thinking about what I was saying at the time. However, this is happening in the middle of the Bible Belt, so I think it might be a factor anyway, even if it’s unofficial.
What disturbs me more that anything is that this whole case has direct ties to the Columbine tragedy, and it seems to be further evidence of adults, who should know better, essentially picking on the kids who don’t fit in, out of fear that their very differences are scary. It’s ridiculous and apalling (and so was that run-on sentence). Many of my friends in middle school on up to my current group would fit the post-Columbine profile. They wear dark clothes, make-up, and trenchcoats, and are hopelessly geeky computer nerds (I say this with love and admiration). To think that they would be targeted for this type of harrassment at school if they’d been unfortunate enough to be in high school now is a little frightening.
I wish I knew more about FOI laws-- I’d go dig something up.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by SPOOFE Bo Diddly *
**
You take that back!
In all seriousness, I do think that we need to wait until the school gives their side of the story. But, spellcasting? ? ? I keep hoping that this whole thing turns out to be some kind of a Haloween hoax.
“She turned me into a duck!”
“A duck?”
“Well . . . . I got better.”
This case will prove an amusing hair-splitting excercise for years to come, since people who follow new age traditions generally:
Believe in magic
Don’t think that a lack of observable cause-and-effect is evidence that magic doesn’t exist, yet:
Are probably going to be against the suspension
Would defend the girl, if she did in fact try to cast a spell against the teacher, on the grounds that no cause-and effect can be established.
This is not unlike the case here in Alabama in which they tried to move Halloween to Saturday, on the premise that Sunday trick-or-treating would keep kids out late on the night before a school day last year, but don’t seem to be worried about it this year when Halloween is on a Tuesday.
We all know that the human mind is a funny thing. Sugar pills will heal people as well as actual medicine. Studies have shown that where a patient is mentally can have a profound difference on a prognosis.
Say we have a school administrator who honestly believes that a Satanic spell conjured up by a junior warlock would affect her. In fact, she believes this so much that when the kid points at her and says “Ooga! Boogaa!” she does, in fact, come down with some strange illness that lays her up for an extended time.
Would this be treated differently than if the techer was David B who replied, “Ooh, I’m so scared,” and was no worse for wear?
Yer pal,
Satan
*TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Six months, three weeks, two days, 5 hours, 23 minutes and 20 seconds.
8248 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,031.12.
Extra time with Drain Bead: 4 weeks, 15 hours, 20 minutes.
David B used me as a cite!*
The only non-establishment position for the school board to take is to suspend the student. Saying that casting a spell or threatening to cast one does not constitute a threat is tantamount to establishing the truth of a religious claim.
Note i said “my WAG”, ie that is what my GUESS was, based on hearing only one side. We can guess all we want- the truth with come out in court. But the LOGICAL “real” reason is that the girl was making “threats”- and even threats of “casting evil spells” are still hate language. A “fictional” story, which MIGHT have been poorly disguised as fiction, but was really her fantasies of how to kill her “enemies” ala columbine, would be serious also.
Neither would be enuf to arrest someone for a CRIME, true, or if they were it would be stretching things, but a lot of things whch are not “crimes” are grounds for school punishments.
See, i could easily see one teacher or administrator being completely out-of-line, and wrong- on something like this- but to have all those folks go off the deep end? Unlikely- but I will admit possible. But again, as long as you hear only one side- you will only hear biased info.
And that’s not the only bashing. I, for one, am worried about the way you’re treating that poor dead horse.
I think the primary issue in the case of a spell as threatening speech would be one of intent, rather than outcome. Simply waggling a stick and yelling, “Ooga boogaa!” lacks both expressed intent and causal outcome, even if the recipient of the waggling succumbs to dysentery on the spot (IANAL, and am not attempting to construct an actual legal argument, here, but am just sort of tossing the ball around the infield, rhetorically speaking). Had the content of the spell included actual words, say, “Now, Mrs. McGillicuddy, my eldritch magicks shall tear your very soul from your pitiful rayon-ensconced body and speed it on its way to the obscene embrace of my squamous master. Ia!” you might be able to make a case for threatening speech. Somewhere in there, the kid expressed a desire for Mrs. McGillicuddy to die, and subsequently be subjected for all eternity to mind-blasting horrors at which even the boldest of the scholars of the weird may only hint. At the very least, Mrs. McGillicuddy wants to keep an eye on this kid, and depending on context, may even want to take punitive action, since threatening a teacher is a big no-no, no matter how silly you sound when you do it.
That having been said, it needs to be pointed out that at no point in the article or in the ACLU document did the girl ever cop to casting a spell. The vice principal accused her of it, but according to the documents (neither of which express the school’s side, which may have a different account of events), she never suggested nor confirmed that she’d even wished ill on this teacher. So not only is the efficacy of any spellcasting in dispute, but so is the fact of whether she uttered so much as a “bippity-boppity-boo.”
I say we burn her, just to be on the safe side.
Lux - “squamous” - very nice!
I sincerely hope you don’t mean this the way it sounds, since it would leave teachers in the position of being able to have students suspended pretty much on a whim. How do you prove someone did or didn’t do something completely imaginary (cast a spell)? “He gave me the Evil Eye. Expel him!”
As Lux Fiat has pointed out, to show some degree of maliciousness you should be able to demonstrate intent and some efficacy of action. In this case there is no intent in evidence and I think any reasonable person agrees you cannot “curse” people. The evidence (granting that it’s only coming from one side so far) screams “witch hunt” any way you look at it, especially considering the school’s history of harassing the student.
You must have had different teachers than I had. 
I think what is meant here is that if the student claims to have cast a curse, saying “you silly girl, curses don’t work” is “tantamount to establishing the truth of a religious claim.”
Huh???
Sorry, typo- fixed it above. makes more sense? Ie, yes, there could well be teachers & administrators who are Christian- but the School administration is unlikely to take a “christian” position.
Lux: True, we have no idea if the student actually “cast a spell”- on the other hand- we really do not know if that is what she is being accused of. All we know is that she was punished. We do not know for what- we do know it was not enuf to have an arrest happen, and we do know it was serious enuf to be punished. Hell, she could have been caught cheating- for all we know. We have no “fact” confirmed at all, even that the girl was suspended. I am willing to bet someone right now, that she was not accused of “casting spells”, but more like “uttering threats”.
Heck, she could have had a detailed death threat written down & delivered to the teacher- we know nothing AT ALL about this case- we have NO facts whatsoever on which to base our speculations. At least, I labeled MINE to be a “WAG”.
If the ACLU wanted the truth “out”, they would agreed to let the scholl comment- but they have not.
Danielinthewolvesden wrote:
To put it bluntly: you’re being naive.
The school administration is not supposed to take a stance based on Christianity. They are also not legally allowed to do so. However, this doesn’t mean they won’t do it anyway.
Other school districts have tried to ban the pentacle, or have forced students to participate in Christian prayer as part of school activities. The First Amendment prohibits those actions, but administrators disregarded the law and went ahead anyway. In many instances, they refused to change their policies until ordered to do so by a court of law. If this lawsuit can be taken at face value, it is an attempt to do the same-- to prevent the administrators from doing things they shouldn’t do, but have done anyway.
Aura seer: we do not even know if the administration even MENTIONED the words “spell” “witch” or 'wicca". Nor do we know what their position is, or their religion, or any fucking thing. We know one thing- a student was suspended. That’s it. For all we know, the entire school administration are all wiccans, paint themself blue, and dance naked every friday (right after the football game). For all we know- they complained about the spell- beacuse the student did not do it right. For all we know- the spell really worked, and the teacher is now a newt, living in a belljar in the science lab.
Sure, it is possible that the administration over-reacted to some weird thing they have against wicca- but we don’t know.
WE know NOTHING. Except you- who, being a “seer”, have somehow magically devined that the administration are all fundies, who are witch-hunters (complete with those snazzy all black & white puritan outfits), and were planning on burning the stuent alive, when the ACLU (to the tune of the “superchicken” theme song) flew in and rescued her from the flames. Ignorant pissant. Ignorant bigoted pissant. “I’m thinking of a number of digits between 1&4”- This middle one.
We know the side of the story given by the girl and her parents. I find it entirely plausible that the faculty of a school would pick on the same student the other kids pick on, conduct an illegal search of a student’s bookbag for no good reason (in this case, post-Columbine hysteria), and attempt to force a student not to display a pentagram. Hell, of those of us who’ve attended public school in the U.S., I’d wager most have seen faculty do one or more of those things (and most of us before Columbine). It’s not that outlandish an accusation.
If the ACLU wanted the truth out, they’d file suit in court. Which they did.
I find it entirely plausible that a student would utter thread about a teacher, and then lie about it. I find LOTS of things “plausible”- but that don’t make them true.
Somehow you are confusing a civil suit with a search for “the truth”- nothing could be farther than the truth. Lawyers- on a search for the TRUTH!?- it is to laugh.
Apparently Christian-bashing is not ok, gout gross generalisations about Lawyers is? :rolleyes:
Double standards, my friend.
