Private schools cost more than a lot of people pay in income tax, so it would not be possible to put every kid in school with tax credits. We also can’t afford the loss of tax revenue. There also aren’t enough secular or non-Christian options for private schools. Many towns don’t have any private schools at all.
The success and well-being of those in their tribe. That which they regard as Other, not so much.
Wrong again.
Get your ass in line behind every childless taxpayer in America.
This is essentially what happened here. I live in Pace. I went to this high school. They held prayers- and not just “Let’s call for a moment of silence”, but “Our father in heaven, Jesus Christ”-type prayers at every school-sanctioned event. Pep rallies, assemblies, and graduation. Randomly inserting “we can thank God for” and “with God’s help” into communications, classroom lectures. The biology teacher doesn’t believe in evolution and regularly talks about how it goes against “God’s word”. It’s a great school for Christians who want a Christian atmosphere for their Christian children, but don’t want to pay for it.
This has been going on forever. A copy of the lawsuit can be found on the ACLU site, here: Does v. School Board for Santa Rosa County, Florida | American Civil Liberties Union
Holding a prayer at a high school graduation or any other school event is illegal. He knew it and did it anyway. Said nobody could stop it. For YEARS. Only, finally, this past year, some students tried to speak up about it. If you don’t live in this tiny, unincorporated township in this part of the bible belt, then it’s hard to understand the kind of courage it took for these kids. The threats they got were pretty rough. I won’t get into personal experience, but not being Christian around here can get you some pretty second-class treatment.
Few are the people who have publicly said, “Good for these kids for speaking out against something they didn’t think was right.”
Since the beginning, articles in the paper have been condemning the kids, their families, the ACLU, and “the times” for not allowing (ILLEGAL) prayer at school events. Most recently, residents are regularly solicited for donations to a legal defense fund to help the law breakers, whose salaries WE pay and who, as a reminder- religion or not- knowingly and flagrantly disregarded the law. Signs have popped up in every 2nd or 3rd front lawn, “PRAY for our schools”.
So, because it’s prayer, are these adults who are supposed to be role models allowed to break the law and get away with it? And intimidate, dismiss, and devalue anyone who disagrees?
Maybe it’s hard to be a Christian these days. But in Pace, Florida it has always been harder NOT to be. And the ACLU is not exactly a Lion’s Den.
This is not true. The Constitution says nothing about government money beyond trivialities such as saying that the government must make information about spending public, and so forth. Government vouchers to private religious schools and other religious organizations are perfectly Constitutional and even the Supreme Court has agreed so. (Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris, Mitchell vs. Helms, Bowen vs. Kendrick, and many others.)
Besides which, think of what the consequences under you interpretation which somehow dredges up these prohibitions. Should employees at Citibank, GM, and AIG be banned from praying while on the job? They get a heck of a lot more government money than most teachers do.
You are massively distorting the issues to support your agenda. I’m not going to comb through everything as your first error is truly glaring. Zelman, for instance, turned not the fiction of “government vouchers to private religious schools”, but
[
](http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-1751.ZS.html)
So in direct contradiction to your fictional gloss, the real reason was government vouchers to individuals who then made their own choices and not to religious schools. It’s the difference between giving people tax credits that they use to buy Bibles, and taking that tax money and having the federal government buy every family in America a Torah.
Which such a significant mistake that ignores the actual facts and just happens to be in accordance with your agenda, there’s really no need to take any of the rest of your claims of jurisprudence at face value without substantiation.
And your rather obvious dodge about AIG aggressively misses the point. It is not a question of who gets “more” money from the government, but that 100% of teachers salaries are paid for by local government and are government employees, which makes them bound by the 1st via the 14th, while AIG is not an organ of the government and AIG employees are not government employees. That non-trivial distinction, of course, is why Moore’s Rock got the fucker fired but American farmers, despite subsidies, are free to erect creches on every square foot of their front yards.
I have already answered that question so many times in so many other threads that I doubt it will have any impact if I answer it again here, but what the heck. Yes. See numerous previous threads for further elaboration. Suffice to say, that question is not the trump card that you seem to think it is.
AIG gets most of its money from the government, takes orders from the government, and (at least in theory) will pay money to the government. Distinguishing its emploees from government employees is a theoretical exercise. In practice, it’s functioning as a branch of the government right now.
In any case, though most folks on your side aren’t willing to acknowledge it, the ACLU’s campaign for censorship does not target only government employees because it does not target only teachers and admins. It also targets students, who are not paid anything by the government.
No, it doesn’t. Students are still free to exercise their religion. What they are prevented from doing is disseminating religious doctrine while acting as an agent for the school administration.
The only time students come afoul of the Establisment Clause is when they imsert religious speech into an utterance which is both sponsored by the school administration and at which attendance of other students is required. A voluntary club, or a baccalaureate service for graduating seniors, at neither of which attendance is required, are legitimate forums for religious speech. One student may freely evangelize another during free time. A “high schoolers club” at a church, open to all students but including religious practice, is perfectly OK.
Now, contemplate a graduation ceremony, mandatory to all graducating seniors, at which a valedictorian is to give a speech of his/her own composition. When that speech turns into a witness of what Jesus Christ has done in the valedictorian’s life, the students, their family, etc., become an unwitting captive audience to a religious speech – at which attendance has been mandated by the school district, an agent created by the state and endowed with its authority.
In the same year, this occurred at the graduation ceremonies of two different public high schools-
one valedictorian gave a speech in which she thanked Jesus, did not tell people they had to accept Him or else, but just thanked Him. I’ve known this young lady since she was a child & she’s always been a good consistent believer & remains so;
another valedictorian gave a speech calling for involvement in political affairs, advocated gun control & accused the NRA of raping the Constitution. I don’t know this young man personally. He’s the son of a Baptist pastor, played JC in the high school production of Godspell, and a gay friend (yes, I have some!) told me that he’s also gay.
In neither case was there, nor should there been, any official action taken to censor them prior to speaking or criticize them after speaking. My friend told me that the guy did get some flak from people privately on what he said but as long as it was just verbal criticism, that’s not a public concern.
I do not regard her talk a violation of the Establishment Clause nor do I regard his a violation of the Second Amendment. And yes, I do think both are comparable.
From everything I’ve read, the Pace administrators & faculty do indeed have a record of violating the Establishment Clause and I can understand & support the speech restrictions placed on them. But keeping the valedictorian from speaking lest she say something religious? Whatever ACLU personnel thought THAT was pro-civil liberties need a kick in the jimmies.
There’s a pretty big difference though. Let’s push aside the issue of the student making the speech, and assume that we’re explicitly talking about an agent of the school doing it. An agent of the school cannot promote any religion, that’s a direct violation of the Establishment Clause. On the other hand, he could rail against the NRA raping the Constitution, and that’s NOT a violation, because the Second Amendment prohibits infringing on gun rights, and talking about what those rights should be does not actually restrict gun possession.
Getting back to the valedictorian, the issue there is whether she is acting as an agent of the school in making her speech. It’s not that clear-cut to me, but I’m willing to give her some latitude in the interest of freedom.
The Establisment Clause does no prohibit agents of the government from engaging in political speech, only from endorsing a religious view (and that also means they can’t say God does not exist), so the comparison isn’t legally valid.
The thing about valedictorians is that they are speaking to a captive audience. They are forcing students to listen to religious speech as a condition of receiving their diplomas. That is improper. It would also be improper for a valedictorian to give a discourse on “freeing one’s self from the shackles of religion.”
I do not believe this actually happens. Students should be able to get diplomas by stopping by the school after graduation or in the mail, or what have you. After all, if not, students who get sick on graduation day wouldn’t have diplomas. Also, you still graduate even if you don’t get the piece of paper, so I’m not really all that inclined to worry about this issue.
I do have a problem if a school administration were to ask a student to specifically give a religious address. But I also don’t see a conflict with the establishment clause if students choose, of their own free will, to Witness.
Yes, you still graduate, and you can still receive your diploma, but you can’t do it in a public ceremony with your family and friends in attendence.
The ceremony is supposed to be secular, and is supposed to serve all the students, not just those who happen to agree with the valedictorian’s religious views.
Only in liberal speak does the Valedictorian=Congress and a speech=a law.
Congress shall make no law…
Wow, not that old canard again.
Yeah, it’s pretty low when someone actually Quotes The Constitution, huh?
If the valedictorian actually preached a sermon or called for people to actually give their lives to Whoever, I would agree with curtailing that. However, some acknowledgement of gratitude to God/Jesus/Allah/Brahma/The Tao/The Great Architect of the Universe is not oppressively religious speech.
The jurisprudence on the 1st Amendment is well-established. It applies to all government entities and agents, not just Congress. Quoting the letter of the clause is just sophistry. Not only that, but it can easily be turned around. If the 1st Amendment only applies to Congress, then you should have no objecting to public schools abridging the free practice of religion. Schools aren’t Congress.