Lamia, I think it’s a very bad idea to give such broad interpretation of the word “threat.” I’d rather use the following definition:
A prohibited threat is one in which the speaker promises to take an illegal course of action that harms the audience, possibly unless the audience acts in the way the speaker desires.
In other words, it’s prohibited to say, “I’ll set you on fire if you don’t stop having sex with guys,” and it’s prohibited to say, “I’ll ask Bob to set you on fire if you don’t stop having sex with guys!” but it’s not prohibited to say, “I’ll ask God to set you on fire if you don’t stop having sex with guys!” and it’s definitely not prohibited to say, “God will burn you in hell for all eternity if you don’t stop having sex with guys!”
It’s assholish, sure. But not prohibited.
If a gang of homophobes starts wearing shirts with anti-gay Bible verses when they corner gay kids and beat them up, then those shirts themselves become a symbol of a threat. If that happens, I have no problem with the school banning them, in the same way that I’d have no problem with a school banning KKK symbols or (in some cases) Confederate flags or swastikas. Absent that direct correlation between the T-shirts and illegal threats, however, I see the shirt and obnoxious but protected speech.
Need the proposed course of action be illegal for the school to ban the threat? In a school setting, being “outed” (as a homosexual or for some other characteristic that would inspire social disapproval) or being the subject of cruel rumors can be a pretty harmful for a student. In some cases it could be worse than all but the most extreme violence. If I were an administrator, I would hate for my hands to be tied just because it’s not actually illegal to tell everyone that Betty Sue had an abortion. It’s not illegal to wear a hat or pass notes either, but teachers and administrators in most American schools are happy to hand out detentions over such things.
I’m afraid I still can’t see the reason for distinguishing between #2 and #3, or between #4 and “Bob will kill you if you don’t stop having sex with guys!” Why is it a threat if you’re talking about the horrible things a human being is going to do to homosexuals, but not when you’re talking about the horrible things God is going to do? I honestly can’t think of any reason other than “Because Bob is real and God isn’t”. Somehow I don’t think protecting such speech on the grounds that it’s not really a threat because the deity involved doesn’t exist anyway would make anyone happy. But what other reason could there be?
I’m not being disingenuous here. I really sincerely cannot understand why a statement that would be a threat if it were about a person suddenly becomes okay if it’s about a supernatural entity, unless we take it as a given that no one believes in the supernatural entity in the first place. Shouldn’t it be a worse threat if God is involved, since (according to believers) God is capable of handing out punishments for more terrible than any mortal and there’s no hope of God being prevented from carrying out His Divine Will? At least I could try to run away or fight back if Bob attempted to set me on fire.
The reason is that God doesn’t do whatever asshole students tell him to do. “If you have sex with guys, God will send you to the lake of fire” is not a threat, it’s a prediction, just like “If you sell cocaine, you will go to jail”, or “If you fail chemistry, coach will kick you off the football team”. “If you have sex with guys, I’ll ask God to send you to the lake of fire” could be a threat, but only if people believe that God would act on such a request.
I don’t think a public school can base their reasoning on what God does and doesn’t actually do. That would require that the school have an official position on the existence of God and the attributes of that God. There must be people who do believe in a god who is influenced by their own prayers and requests, and who is the school administration to tell them that this isn’t so? Basing school policy on the idea that such religious beliefs are false seems like a greater violation of the first amendment than telling one kid he can’t wear a particular t-shirt.
So is “If you ask me out again, my father will whup you” a threat or a prediction? How about “Bob doesn’t like homosexuals. Stop being such a homo, or he will whup you”?
Again, I don’t think a public school can base its policy on particular religious beliefs. Something can’t be against the rules if your target holds certain religious beliefs but A-OK if they don’t. The victim shouldn’t have to take a “What is your faith?” quiz before punishment can be handed out.
I can understand taking the position that the wording on this particular shirt wasn’t strong enough to constitute a threat. In fact, I can understand it well enough that I can see myself changing my own position on the matter. “Be Afraid; Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned” would be pretty clear, but “Be Ashamed”…eh, maybe not. But I am very, very uncomfortable with the idea that it’s okay just because it’s about God. I don’t think kids in school should get to use religion as an excuse to intimidate or harass other students.
They could just limit what they consider threats to statements about actual people, rather than supernatural entities. I wouldn’t mind classifying all supernatural “threats” as protected speech.
They are threats if the implication is that the speaker will do something to convince her father or her friend Bob to whup the victim. For “my father”, the implication is clear enough. For “Bob”, it depends who he is - if I say “Bob Barker is gonna whup you”, and I don’t actually know Bob Barker, I don’t actually have any influence over whether Bob Barker is going to assault anyone.
I am just as uncomfortable about prohibiting religious speech just because someone might perceive it as a supernatural threat. If someone honestly believes that some sort of behavior will be punished in the afterlife, then there’s no way he can express that without it sounding like a threat to someone.
When you tell kids that “retarded” is a rude word, and they should say “special” instead, then pretty soon the word “special” means exactly what “retarded” used to mean, and nothing has changed. If you say that it’s OK to express a religious belief using certain words, but not others, even though the message (as intended by the speaker) is exactly the same, then again, nothing will change.
I would. A threat’s a threat, and they don’t belong in school. Students do not have the right to threaten one another, even if the threat seems unlikely to come true.
Which is why I don’t think expressing such beliefs is appropriate in a school setting. A public school can’t tell a student that their religious belief is wrong, but they aren’t required to give the student a forum either. The first amendment doesn’t guarantee the right to have a captive audience. That’s what other students are in school. They can’t just go home if they feel threatened by another student’s speech. If it’s impossible for someone to express their meaning without it sounding like a threat, then I think that’s just going to have to be a meaning they aren’t allowed to express in school.
Well, I don’t think that, in a school setting, it’s okay to express such beliefs using certain words but not others. However you phrase “Quit being queer, or you’re gonna burn in Hell!”, I consider it both a threat and inappropriate for school. I don’t care how it’s phrased. I could possibly be convinced that the message of this student’s shirt wasn’t “Quit being queer, or you’re gonna burn in Hell!”, although it would take some pretty fancy talking. But if that was the message, then it wasn’t OK.
In that case, you should worry about the captivity, not the expression. The First Amendment doesn’t make an exception for captive audiences. It would surely be unconstitutional to keep prisoners from talking about religion, right?
That’s just far too broad. You’re basically saying that any expression of religious beliefs relating to punishment in the afterlife is inappropriate for school, which as I understand it is clearly a First Amendment violation. You cannot prevent students from discussing issues of their faith, but that is exactly what you’re doing by declaring certain religious ideas to be inherently threatening.
If “Be ashamed, our school embraces what the lord condemns” is a threat, then so is a direct bible quote of any verse that mentions punishment in the afterlife, and so is a reference to the verse and a suggestion to read it. You would prevent students from talking about, say, the parable of the sheep and the goats, because it threatens inhospitable people with eternal fire.
I don’t believe it would be unconstitutional to tell one prisoner to stop harassing other prisoners with unwelcome “witnessing”. It’s certainly not unconstitutional to tell them they can’t threaten each other.
No, what I am “basically saying” is that threats should not be allowed in school, be they threats of physical harm, social humiliation, or eternal damnation. Religion is not an excuse to do whatever you like. If non-religious threats are inappropriate at school (and nothing is going to convince me that they are not), then religious-themed threats are inappropriate as well.
It’s not the idea that’s threatening. It’s telling people that they’re cruisin’ for a divine bruisin’ that’s threatening.
No, I wouldn’t. “The Bible says this” is not a threat. “I believe this” is not a threat. But I have yet to be convinced that “Stop that, or God is going to cast you into the flames” is not a threat. My mind is not closed to the possibility, but I just don’t see it and no one here has been able to present me with a compelling reason why it’s not. I could better understand arguing that “Our school embraces what the Lord condemns” is not technically a threat on the grounds that it isn’t explicit about the fate that awaits those who embrace what the Lord condemns. However, I don’t think many Westerners could possibly be unaware of what that fate is said to be, so the threat is clearly implied if not stated outright.
From what I can tell, the kid wearing the shirt was not harassing anyone. No one was forced to look at his shirt, he wasn’t approaching anyone, and it was the school administrators who had a problem with his message, not his fellow students.
Come on. You’re also saying that an expression of religious beliefs relating to punishment in the afterlife is a threat, aren’t you? If not, how can you tell the difference between a religious “threat” and a non-threatening expression of the same belief?
How do you want students to discuss their beliefs that God will punish sinners, without making those “sinners” feel threatened?
Yes, they were forced to look at his shirt. People can’t simply will themselves not to see something that’s put before them, and they couldn’t leave the classroom or the school building if they didn’t want to see it either. I suppose they could do their best to avert their eyes, but students had to sit behind this kid in class. What were they supposed to do if they didn’t like looking at his shirt, gouge out their eyes?
It’s not my job to help people express religious beliefs that I do not hold. Either they can think of some way that’s not threatening, or they can shut up about it at school. Same goes for any other kind of belief. If you can’t talk about it without threatening other students, then you don’t get to talk about it.
Well, they could just deal with it. So far we have no evidence that any of those students were unable to do so.
Can you think of any possible way they could phrase it that would make it non-threatening, while still getting the same idea across - that they believe God will punish certain actions in the afterlife?
See, you say you aren’t opposed to students expressing their religious beliefs, you are only opposed to “threats”. But so far I don’t see a distinction; I don’t see how you could approve of those ideas being expressed at all, no matter which words were used, because the core idea is “if you do this then God will punish you” and that is inherently a “threat” as you seem to define it.
And if it comes down to a choice between either allowing religious “threats” or suppressing all discussion of supernatural consequences for earthly actions–which seem to be an awfully big part of the beliefs that are practiced by an awful lot of people–then I must go with the former, and I think anyone else who reads the First Amendment must do the same.
If there’s no possible way to phrase it in a non-threatening way, then I guess it’s an inherently threatening statement. If it’s an inherently threatening statement, I can see no justification for allowing it in school.
Well, if someone’s religious belief can only be expressed as a threat then I guess they just don’t get to talk about it at school. Too bad. Kids don’t get to express purely secular threats at school either. You don’t want to grant hellfire-and-brimstone Christian students special rights not enjoyed by students who don’t hold similar religious beliefs, do you?
Let me go back to what you wrote before: Broad advice like “Don’t embrace what the law condemns” or “If you embrace what the law condemns, you could go to prison” would be warnings
So would it also be OK to say “Don’t embrace what the lord condemns” or “If you embrace what the lord condemns, you could go to hell”? How about if we’re more specific about what the lord is condemning; would it be OK to say “Don’t have sex with guys” or “If you have sex with guys, you could go to hell”? If not, how is this supernatural “threat” different from a legal “threat”?
What I want to do is make sure all students keep their First Amendment right to speak freely about their religion (or lack thereof). No special rights. Everyone can spout off about the horrible retaliation that invisible magical entities might deal out to people after they die; no one can spout off about the horrible retaliation that real people will deal out in the real world.
Look, either it’s a threat or it isn’t. If it isn’t, then of course it shouldn’t be prohibited as a threat. I am open to this possibility. As I said, I’ve been mulling over exactly what seperates a threatening statement from a non-threatening one, and I don’t feel confident enough in my understanding of the matter to declare that the statement on the shirt was definitely a threat.
But if it was a threat, and at this moment I’m still on the “it was” side of the fence, then it can’t fall into some special protected class of threats. There should be no such thing as a special protected class of threats in a school. If it’s a threat then it isn’t permissable, end of story. I’m not changing my mind about that one. If you think that there should be a special protected class of threats, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that point.
Maybe. I wrote “Yes, it might be annoying but not a threat” at first, but upon reflection I have some qualms.
The difference I see in this case is the reason for my hesitation above. The law is not omnipotent and omniscent, and legal punishments are not inevitable or eternal. If you embrace what the law condemns, you could go to jail…but then again, you might not. And even if you do go to jail, you can serve you sentence and be released. When it comes to what the Lord condemns, there’s no “might not”. I’m not sure it’s possible to say “Don’t embrace what the Lord condemns” without implying “or you’re going to Hell for sure.” Whether one believes in the implied ending or not is a personal call, but there can’t be many people in the US who wouldn’t understand that it was being implied. And as long as unavoidable endless suffering is looming behind the statement, it’s hard to make it sound non-threatening.
Still, I can see allowing religious “warnings” provided they do not reference divine punishment and are not targeted at the student body, school staff, or some subset of those groups. “Homosexuality is Shameful” in and of itself is not a threat, nor is it clearly religious. It could just be the student’s personal opinion. Romans 1 is kind of a confusing Biblical chapter, but looking at the verse cited in context it’s not clear to me that the bit about how the men “received in themselves due penalty for their perversion” is meant to describe punishment from God. It sounds more like some sort of natural physical or psychological consequence of engaging “indecent acts” too often or too enthusiastically. So I don’t think the original version of the shirt could be considered a threat. One might object to it on other grounds, but in this case the administration took no action until two more phrases were added to the shirt.
The first, “Be Ashamed”, is obnoxious but not a threat. “Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned” is where I think the shirt crosses the line into threatening speech. This isn’t a statement about sinners in general, but people at this school in specific. It also makes it clear that the intended message isn’t “Homosexuality is nothing to be proud of”, “Gay sex might lead to unpleasant real-world consequences”, or even “The Bible suggests that being gay isn’t a really good idea.” It’s instead a more politely phrased version of Fred Phelps’s famous slogan. I could see arguing that it’s still not actually a threat because it doesn’t say what will happen to those who embrace what God condemns, but I’m not sure that a threat has to be spelled out that way. “Do this, or else” certainly seems like a threat, even though the “else” isn’t specified.
I’d say it isn’t, for reasons that I’ve already given.
But, for the sake of argument, even if it were, I’d say it should still be protected simply because it would be impossible to discuss religion in any detail otherwise.
Well, then is it OK to say “If you keep asking me out, I might tell my dad and he might break your legs”? She might not tell her dad, and her dad might not beat up the suitor… and even if he does, broken bones can heal.
Like you said, it’s either a threat or it isn’t. The statement doesn’t stop being a threat just because it might not be carried out, or because the threatened punishment isn’t eternal.
If you can’t talk about God condemning things, you can’t really discuss much of the Bible.
I don’t buy the distinction between sinners in general and people at the school; the statement is still too vague to be considered a threat against anyone. Who exactly is being threatened - all the staff and students of the school? All of them except the kid wearing the shirt? Only the gay students? Only the staff and students who took part in the day of silence?
If you can’t talk about God commanding things, you can’t really discuss much of any religion. Any law or public school rule that used that standard to prohibit speech would be struck down while the ink was still wet.
You have a much dimmer view of religion than I do if you think it’s impossible to discuss it without threatening people with hellfire. Even in this particular case the student should have been able to encourage compliance with Christian values by focusing on the carrot rather than the stick: “God’s Chosen Path Leads to Heaven!” “Embrace the Lord’s Law, Win Eternal Life!” “Jesus Loves You, Welcome Him Into Your Heart!”
I’m thinking back to my earlier example of “If your paper is late, I’ll mark you down” vs. “If your paper is late, I’ll beat you senseless.” Why does the latter seem threatening while the former seems like a reasonable warning against future punishment? Both negative consquences are in the teacher’s hands alone. Both could be avoided by compliance with the teacher’s wishes. If anything, the former is more certain than the latter – the teacher might not actually be able to beat the student senseless, but few forces could prevent the teacher from lowering a grade. Does a “warning” become a “threat” when the consequences are unreasonable? Is it when the intent is to inspire fear rather than rational re-evaluation of a potential course of action? I’m not sure, but I’m genuinely interested in working this out. However, this is beginning to seem like a hijack (it may have struck others as such long ago), so I’d be happy to go ponder the threat vs. warning issue alone for a while and maybe start another thread about it later.
Again, you obviously think much less of Christianity than I do. Most of the Bible isn’t just God condemning stuff left and right.
Post-Columbine, I wouldn’t fault administrators for considering a threat against the entire school specific enough to merit concern. It’s certainly not too big a target for God to tackle.
There are certainly parts of Christianity you can talk about without mentioning damnation. You can also talk about German history without mentioning World War II, or biology without mentioning genetics. But you will be dancing around issues and presenting less than a complete picture.
Similarly, you could encourage compliance with tax laws by focusing on all the good programs that are supported by tax dollars, without ever mentioning audits or the penalties for tax evasion. But again you would be presenting a skewed picture of why people pay taxes and how taxes are collected.
No, but some parts are. You would declare those parts to be off limits, and those parts seem pretty important to some Christians.
I think many Christians would disagree that the whole eternal damnation thing is an essential part of their faith. Some do not believe in eternal damnation at all. Even for the most hellfire-and-brimstone of the lot, eternal damnation is something that happens to other people, not good Christians. It’s got nothing to do with their day-to-day religious life.
I would declare them off-limits for display or distribution on school grounds. I haven’t said I wouldn’t allow them in a discussion about religious beliefs. That’s an issue I meant to address earlier, but it slipped my mind. I don’t think t-shirt slogans can really be considered part of a “discussion”, and I think it is possible to allow students to say certain things without allowing them to emblazon the same message across their chests.
Some other posters have said, roughly, “If he can say it, he can wear it”, but I don’t think that’s necessarily so. Were I an administrator, I wouldn’t attempt to prohibit students from saying things like “I hate John Doe. He’s such a jerk.” (“John Doe” being another student, not a generic name or public figure.) If they burst out with this in the middle of a history lecture or followed John Doe around shouting it at him then that would be disruptive and worthy of punishment, but they should be allowed to express such opinions to friends during free time. But I definitely would not allow a student to wear a t-shirt reading “I hate John Doe. He’s such a jerk.” I wouldn’t allow “I hate John Doe” posters, buttons, or flyers either. That’s not expressing an opinion anymore, it’s making another student the target of harassment and public humiliation. Similarly, “Homosexuals go to Hell”, “I hate men”, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian”, etc., might be permissable in conversation, but it’s one thing to state your views and another to make them into a public display. Prohibiting such public displays needn’t interfere with genuine discussion of controversial issue.
Well, I should let an actual Christian address this.
“Many” and “some” don’t cut it, though. And I don’t see the relevance of “day-to-day religious life” - if someone believes that God will punish sinners, then it doesn’t matter whether he himself is one of those sinners; it’s still part of his religious beliefs and you would prevent him from expressing it.
I really don’t see a difference between wearing a T-shirt with a message, and saying that message throughout the day. A T-shirt just lets you say something all the time without using your mouth, in a way that other people don’t really have to pay attention to.
How is it any different from saying “I hate John Doe, he’s such a jerk” to a bunch of people during the day? Isn’t that just as public?
