partly_warmer, I think you may be thinking only of the first limb of the first amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . .”). The amenment goes on to say “ . . . or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” and it is hard to argue that this means simply that Congress shall not establish a state church. It means what it says; Congress may not prohibit the free exercise of religion.
It does not follow that any crime can be committed in the name of religion, of course, but in this case the school district can neither prohibit the wearing of pentacles alone, nor prohibit the wearing of pentacles, crosses, Stars of David, and all other religious symbols.
Is it possible that the display of a pentacle can give offence? Yes. The display of crosses can give offence, too. But this does not justify the banning of either pentacles or crosses. This remains true even if those wearing pentacles (or crosses) are unaware of the upset caused to some people.
Wicca and Satanism are clearly both religions. It’s not as though the mother or the daughter were claiming that conservative republicanism, or being a passionate follower of the Pittsburgh Steelers, were religions protected by the First Amendment.
So, I ask, what? i don’t think the school is within its rights to require students to pass a religious literacy test before they can wear a religious symbol to school. If a Christian boy could wear a crucifix around his neck despite not knowing the names of the four gospels, then why should a Wiccan girl have to prove her knowledge of Wicca before she’s allowed to wear a pentacle?
If a Jewish kid doesn’t realize that her Star of David is gonna piss off the school’s fundies, does that lessen her right to wear it?
Whether or not the girl is aware that Wicca is a valid religion (as determined over and over by the US government – viz. Wicca organization’s tax-exempt status under religious exemptions, the fact that army chaplains will provide appropriate services to Wiccans), the school is legally bound to treat it the same as it treats other religions.
When I was in high school, I started the Aspirants to the Ancient Learning (I know, I know…), a pagan counterpart to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I was fortunate enough to have a principal who understood the first amendment, and our group’s announcements got read over the intercom just like any other group’s announcements would be. We did have one teacher in our school who would rip up the fliers we sent out to every homeroom, who would tell her homeroom that we were going to hell. And what she was doing was illegal. Same as this school system.
Look all, what’s insulting is culturally based. There aren’t any absolutes here. One person can point at a symbol and say “That offends me” and another person can say “It doesn’t offend me.” This approach devolves into a pissing contest.
If our pentacle girl took an infallible lie detector test, and admitted “Yes, I wanted to offend the school”, would it make a difference? Is any amount of offensiveness is protected by the Constitution?
It’s ok for me to burn the flag? Ok to call people bigoted names? Ok to swear at policemen, nuns, teachers? Ok to say anything I want without social repercussions?
It seems to me that the girl’s mother (not the girl) is trying to make a political statement, not a religious one. And to add sting to her ire, she’s resorted to going outside the conventions of her community. She doesn’t want to reason, she wants to fight.
That, I can’t support. Particularly in the name of religion.
But who started the fight? The school district could have ignored it and no one would have even noticed.
You seem to be putting an awful lot of words in the parents’ mouths, would you appreciate it if everytime I saw someone wearing a cross I assumed they hate Jews?
But who started the fight? The school district could have ignored it and no one would have even noticed.
You seem to be putting an awful lot of words in the parents’ mouths, would you appreciate it if everytime I saw someone wearing a cross I assumed they hate Jews?
The purpose of the writers of the constitution was specifically to stop a state religion, and to stop the state from controlling religous practices. These were among the reasons this country was founded. Avoiding the English repression of Puritans, etc. There wasn’t anything unchangeable about the meaning of the word “religion”. And people in 1776 certainly would have been shocked to learn that the constitution would be seen as protecting satanism! They burned witches 80 years before, remember?
I don’t see evidence that the federal government accepts satanism as a valid (tax-exempt) religion, and there is apparently ongoing dispute from states such as Florida as to whether wiccan is a religion, either. So neither are “clearly religions”.
I’ll reiterate that I believe the girl should be allowed to wear whatever she wants to school, however. The officials made a mistake asking her to remove the symbol. They should have let peer pressure take its course…
No, but religion is, and since it is, any discussion of offensiveness is irrelevant.
Fortunately so, because what’s offensive is mighty murky. But in this case, what’s religious is clear as can be.
As for
If that “peer pressure” consisted of religious conversations, that’s cool. If it consisted of threats or harassments, it’d be totally uncool – and if the school allowd the girl to be harassed for wearing a pentacle when they wouldn’t normally allow her to be harassed, then they’re back in the doodoo again.
partly_warmer, you know the difference between social repercussions and government-sanctioned repercussions. The latter is what happened to the girls.
For the time being at least, as far as what the state or its agents* at any level of government* can do to you, YES, it’s “OK for me to burn the flag”. People will get pissed off at you and consider you to be a rude SOB and tell you so to your face… and it’s also OK for them to do so. But the authorities can’t take reprisal against you for it. The 1st Amendment, being part of the Constitution, and by virtue of the 14th applicable to all the states equally, trumps every lesser jurisdiction’s statute.
Calling people rude names? Depends on the form and venue. If you stand outside their window yelling it at them at 3am you’ll get cited for disturbing the peace (NOT for calling them rude names per se) ; if you scream insults at them while getting “in their face” in the street, some locales will consider it a form of battery. If you post it on The Pit, as long as it does not contain actual libel, nothing happens to you.
Quite frankly, if “community conventions” are asinine, and someone wishes to oppose them, they are free to do so: if it brings about social oprobium, they have to decide if it’s worth it. But official, government-sanctioned punishment should be very restrictively and reluctantly applied, and it should not be applied in a discriminatory fashion.
Or it could be taken as saying “I am truly convinced you guys are wrong and I am right”. And they WOULD have to just sit there and smile.
Now, if you had a school ordinance decreeing “no necklaces” or “no visible jewelry”, period, under the premise of avoiding thefts, or distractions from study, then that would be totally in the clear. AND… I even believe we could make a (granted, tissue-paper-thin) case for a ban on any visible religious jewelry – AFAIK I don’t know of any religion that commands that you wear a pendant externally – as long as it were absolute and did not exempt the “majority” religions.
A strict constructionist view of the Constitution is impossible, however. Our country has changed and perhaps the greatest strength of our Constitution is that is has changed along with us. What would the framers think of most of what we do? They woulnd’t understand us because we live in a different world than theirs.
First, wicca and neo-paganism are not satanic. Second, tax-exempt status is not the litmus test for the government’s acceptance of religious ideas. All religious ideas are equally valid under the law and only criminal behavior in their name is prohibited…just like criminal behavior is prohibited in every other context. That said, I can’t resist putting a fly in your soup by noting that the U.S. military recognizes wicca as a valid religion.
That you advocate mob rule rather than the rule of law as an acceptable prescription for justice is telling.
You are right, of course, that the current meaning of the constitution is considerably changed from what the writers conceived. However, my basic point stands: a religious group that would never have been accepted 200 years ago, and is still a source of contention, is in no sense automatically protected by the constitution. The girl’s mother is interested in having her religion recognized. So I repeat, the mother, and not the girl, is making a political statement. And a disingenuous one, to my taste.
I didn’t say wicca was satanic, and I didn’t mention neo-paganism. I did cite a reference to the effect that the pentacle, among other associations, connoted satanism/magic/occult. It may well not be the only association, as people have pointed out, but if I saw the symbol painted on the sidewalk, or on a poster, I’d certainly suspect it could mean satanism.
I prefer peer pressure in because the issue is staggeringly trivial. It’s not as if the girl is going to be permanently brain-damaged by not being able to publically display her necklace. I removed the religious license plates from my car because it offended a couple people in another religion. I wasn’t trying to cause offense. No one told me to remove them. I got the hint.
Just a note: a major tenet in Wicca is to not cause harm to others. Only after some time passed was there even a stipulation added that allowed protecting yourself in dire circumstances.
—In this particular case the girl is wearing a symbol that says to a number of people “I follow satan, and not God.”—
Which is as much a sign of their ignorance than anything, considering that this girl is NOT a Satanist. Even if she was, almsot no Satanist “follows Satan” in any meaningful sense. Satan is an archetypal symbol, not an actual being to follow, to most Satanists.
—Whether that’s taken to be reactionary, ignorant, evil, or counter-culture, the underlying intent might reasonably be taken as saying “fuck you” to established local authorities. And they’re supposed to just sit there and smile?—
Yes. And I’ll tell you precisely why: it is because while they are authorities on certain things, they do NOT have any authority over religion or religious practices. No one gave them that authority, and every time they try to exercise it, they do so illegitimately.
—Is the ACLU going to run to protect me if I wear an anti-pick-your-issue t-shirt in the middle of Dallas, San Francisco, a mosque, Salt Lake City, a Hells Angels rally? Or are they just going to say: “What were you thinking of?”—
They will indeed protect you. If the groups in question don’t like your T-shirt, they can do one of several things: assert the fact that they are private organizations (in the way a public school is NOT) with a right to control attendees. Or they can ban all “issue T-shirts.” But only the second option is open to public schools.
—Insulting other people’s beliefs and/or culture is not without consequences.—
What I find most insulting is the idea that anyone who is different is considered an insult: that someone’s practicing of a different religion is considered offensive.
Last note: I can’t think of anything more in line with the Satanic tenet of justified revenge than the much lauded concept of “Texas Justice.”
—The girl’s mother is interested in having her religion recognized. So I repeat, the mother, and not the girl, is making a political statement. And a disingenuous one, to my taste.—
Since she’s responding to discrimination and authoritarian bullying, she has every right to make a statement against it. If no one said anything about the necklace, and then the mother made a stink anyway, I might be more inclined to buy your arguement. As it is, I think you’re just looking for someone to pin your original disproval on. I think the only ones that deserve it are the school officials.
—I prefer peer pressure in because the issue is staggeringly trivial. It’s not as if the girl is going to be permanently brain-damaged by not being able to publically display her necklace.—
But she is going to get a message that’s much worse: that her and her beliefs are second-class. That bullies rule. That ignorance is a good excuse for mockery. And she’s not the only one damaged by that lesson: everyone in the school is, even if only because they are given another chance to cheer on the corruption.
musteion, I was going to add, before the board started eating posts, that your response would be improved if you hadn’t quoted incorrectly. For example, I said peer pressure, and you, to bolster the inflamatory nature of your argument, turned that into “mob rule”. I didn’t say that, and I didn’t mean it.
Apos, I said the symbol offends people. Obviously it offends the locals. Your cute reply is “Well they can’t be very educated”. If it takes unusual education to understand why the pentacle is benign, who’s at fault?
…
I was going to continue, but I feel that ultimate boredom coming on that happens in some SDMB threads. I’ve already said I support the girl wearing her pentacle. What exactly are you all arguing about? That anybody should be allowed to say or do anything, under any circumstances? If so, save it for your first philosophy class in college, ok?
I’m not sure why this is warranted. If it is true that something is not unprotected by the Constitution simply by virtue of the fact that the framers wouldn’t have personally cared for it, then it is also true that Wicca or any other religious belief (being religious beliefs and being that religious beliefs are expressly protected) is as protected as Christianity.
Lots of things are “contentious,” but the Bill of Rights exists to ensure that we are protected from the “tyrrany of the majority,” as de Tocqueville put it. If suddenly 99.9% of Americans converted to Islam (an arbitrary example) and subsequently decided that Christianity was “contentious” and objectionable, the remaining .1% of the followers of Christianity, whether “recognized” or not, would still have the right to practice and believe what they like. So, yes, religious beliefs, regardless of popular opinion about them, are protected under the Constitution.
This may or may not be true, however the girl has stated otherwise.
[quoteI didn’t say wicca was satanic, and I didn’t mention neo-paganism. I did cite a reference to the effect that the pentacle, among other associations, connoted satanism/magic/occult. It may well not be the only association, as people have pointed out, but if I saw the symbol painted on the sidewalk, or on a poster, I’d certainly suspect it could mean satanism.[/quote]
All that means is that your perception might very well be wrong. You are implying that, since it can mean “satanic,” that it everywhere and always does. The conversation ought to go like this:
“Hey is that a pentacle around your neck? Aren’t those satanic?”
“Sometimes they are, yes, but my religion uses them in a completely different meaning.”
“Oh, okay. Not satanic, it is.”
Once corrected, there ought to be no further debate as to what an individual claims. Also, I mentioned neo-paganism because Wicca is a branch of it.
I think that it is not trivial. The pentacle, itself, is just a piece of metal or plastic or paint, but what it represents is not. Just as, technically, pressuring a young lady to remove the cross from her neck means more than simply taking off jewelry, the same is true in this case.
That was your choice, but it has little to do with what is just. I’m studying law, so I’m a bit of an idealist, but I am also a closet Buddhist, so I take news stories like this quite seriously. =}
No. The pentacle is pagan. The inverted pentacle is Satanic. The cross is Christian, and the inverted cross is Satanic. We don’t ban crosses just because they are sometimes used by Satanists, and the goverment is prevented from banning pentacles for the same reason.
This girl and her family have never mentioned Satanism. They are Wiccans, not Satanists.
No. If she were a Satanist, which she is not, and if she were breaking laws as advocated by her religion, which she also is not, then she would be legally culpable for the laws that she breaks. If caught, she could expect jail time. But her wearing of religious imagery is a separate issue and would still be protected by the Constitution regardless of what that religion advocates.
Immune from criticism? No. Immune from state suppression? Yes, that’s exactly what the Constitution says.
This is largely what the Constitution is about. The Bill of Rights enumerates individual rights that are inviolable regardless of your local jurisdiction. They may not be abridged just because your local community doesn’t like it. Religious freedom is one of those rights.
First, how people “take” her wearing of the pentacle is not her concern. Nor is it the concern of local authorities, provided that other laws are not being broken. Second, I personally don’t take it to be reactionary, ignorant, evil, or counter-culture. I take it as a person enjoying their right to religious freedom.
Absolutely not. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that they have to smile.
Justice via peer pressure is justice by mob rule. It can’t be called lawful, and is instead the many bullying the few. If you took offense, I apologize, but I cannot think of any other way to consider the matter. What other type of justice would you call peer pressure?
[quoteWhat exactly are you all arguing about? That anybody should be allowed to say or do anything, under any circumstances? If so, save it for your first philosophy class in college, ok?[/QUOTE]
I, personally, am trying to argue that she not only should be able to wear her symbol, but also that it is firmly protected by the Constitution. Also, no one is arguing that people ought to be allowed to say or do anything under any circumstances, but rather that unless a certain activity is illegal, it is protected activity. What is the alternative?
Is it just me who finds it ironic that the early Christians might have appreciated “constitutional” protection for their beliefs when they were unpopular and they were being persecuted?
They are going to protect you. Well, maybe not you personally, but your right to free expression. Except that the mosque can require any dress code they wanted.
My understanding is that if someone wore a pentacle only to create a disruption, then their actions would not be protected because they would not constitute the free exercise of religion. If they were just trying to piss people off, their actions would have no religious content. But I am not a lawyer.
Yes.
Yep.
Well, I don’t know about policemen. But nuns and teachers, sure. I do it all the time. (Just kidding, of course. I would never swear at a teacher.)
In my understanding, this one would actually depend on the circumstances. If you were swearing just to be obscene or to harass, then that’s not protected.
Indeed it is. That’s the whole point of the first amendment. “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” That means that the government does not decide which religions are acceptable and which are not. Wicca is a religion; therefore, Wicca is protected.
I don’t see the issue as trivial at all, but this is a matter of opinion. I see the slippery slope argument being relevant here. If we ban some forms of religious expression but not others, we put the government in the position of determining the form, if not the content, of personal religious expression. I would prefer that my government not have that kind of power.
And I support your right to make that decision for yourself. I would not support the government’s right to make that decision for you.
My memory is a little hazy on this, but I believe the Clinton administration issued rules clarifying what was and was not protected religious expression in public schools. All of the situations you mentioned would be allowable under those rules. That is, schools could not ban religious jewelry at all, even under the guise of banning all jewelry. Although if said jewelry is used to harass or disrupt, that’s another story.
