Why can't those girls wear a pentacle to school?

Great Debates
61

—I said the symbol offends people. Obviously it offends the locals.—

I have very little sympathy for people who make it their bussiness to get offended by the mere existence of someone’s differing religious views, especially when those views are FAR more reserved and under-the-radar than the constantly in-your-face presentation of the dominant religion.

—Your cute reply is “Well they can’t be very educated.”—

Damn straight. And this isn’t a cute reply at all. I feel nothing but revulsion for people who wish to attack other people without even bothering to figure out who they are attacking. I feel nothing but revulsion for those who think it is their job to purge a society of all ideas, all creeds, all lifestyles, but their own.

—If it takes unusual education to understand why the pentacle is benign, who’s at fault? —

The officials! If they want to meddle in people’s lives, the least they can do is find out what the hell they are even talking about! If they think (wrongly) that they are given any authority over these matters, the least they can do is exercise it responsibly and carefully.

62

PartyWarmer, are you serious? You’ve said that you support her wearing her pentacle, but you’ve also said that:

  • 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.
  • I prefer peer pressure in because the issue is staggeringly trivial.
  • 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?

and that’s just from your last two posts. That is what we’re still arguing about.

Not content to misrepresent what you’ve said, you go on to ask us if we’re arguing that anyone can say or do anthing they want anytime. Nice way to misrepresent what we’ve said as well.

Here’s the point, laid out for you:

  • The Constitution prevents any government body from making judgements based on religion and from preventing the expression of religion.
  • The courts have ruled that, if government has a compelling and non-religiously-based reason for limiting a religious practice, it may do so (e.g., it may prevent folks from smoking peyote as part of a religious ritual).
  • Wicca meets a reasonable standard for a religion.
  • The government has presented no compelling, non-religiously-based reason for preventing a Wiccan from wearing a pentacle.
  • Therefore, the government may not prevent a Wiccan from wearing a pentacle.

Other points – whether her mother is being disingenuous, whether Paganism would have been accepted as a religion around the time of the Constitution (I’ll remind you that Ben Franklin was a member of the Hellfire Club and let you decide whether that’s relevant), whether the pentacle is sometimes a symbol of Satan, whether people in the town are offended by the pentacle, whether the problem is trivial – are irrelevant. This is a pretty straightforward issue that should be resolved pretty straightforwardly by the Constitution.

Daniel

63

Thanks musteion and Savaka for your latest, but, honestly, the issue is being somewhat skewed.

I was quite radical during high school, living in a very radical town. I wore my shirt open, knowing exactly how far I could push the authorities. I didn’t come to school topless. If I had, and the powers that be had lowered the boom, I wouldn’t have called the ACLU. It wasn’t a matter of civil rights, it was a power struggle. Pure and simple. No one was fooling anyone.

When a mother and daughter make a statement that the national press gets involved with it’s hard to believe they don’t know what they’re doing, too. It’s dollars to donuts that their motivation is not religious freedom, but just pure old-fashioned spite. I don’t see why the ACLU needs to be involve, unless they’ve decided to defend people who are being shitty to each another.

As for what a pentacle does and doesn’t mean, the earlier posts, if nothing else, make it clear it’s meant quite a number of things at various times. Myself, I associate it with witchcraft. Or the Kabala. The symbol has other connotations besides wicca.

64

Savaka, perhaps I misunderstand you, but it seems to me your doing the blanket condemnation without research thing again. Did you read my post on the previous page? Have you researched your claims that Satanism advocates the breaking of laws?

I know this is a hijack, but my goodness, this board is devoted to fighting ignorance. You may think Anton LeVay is out to lunch, but to ascribe to the churches that claim they were founded by him an advocacy of illegal activities is ignorant, IMHO, and needs to be fought.

As to others who have asked about the “intent to offend” status of some of Satanism’s precepts and imagery: communities are allowed to make any laws they want prohibbiting offensiveness provided they do not unfairly discriminate against a particular group. This is the precendent set by the case in Flordia where a law was passed banning the religious practice of animal sacrifise in the town that some practioners of Santaria were doing. The Supreme Court ruled, in effect, that if the town wanted to ban all killing of animals as offensive, it was within their rights to do so. However, as this particular law was drafted to single out offenses specifically of a particular religious nature (and not against slaughterhouses or meat packing plants), the law was unconstitutionally biased against the free-practice of religion.

If you are going to allow some students to wear symbols that are offensive to others, you need to have it based on something other than simply religious indignation. Profanity is secularly defined, so it is permissible for a school to outlaw the profane on, say, a teeshirt.

Let’s look at another hypothetical scenario about profanity. If the school were to say a child couldn’t say, “the Lord’s name in vain”… to be totally consistent they should also have a policy whereby if ANYBODY were to complain about a particular remark that they deemed offensive to their religion, then such remarks be prohibbitted. If a child said, “Oh Buddha” and some Greater Vehicle Buddhist found it offensive, to be totally consistent with a school policy against religious profanity the school would have to discipline the offending party that uttered the epiteth against the Enlightened One. This is where the slippery slope really begins. If a school wishes to be protective of the sensibilities of a certain religious group it has to be prepared to be protective of the sensibilities of ALL religious groups.

So, say the school district (or the principal) says that the symbol is offensive to most of the children in the school. Well, then what if a crucifix or a proselytizing teeshirt is offensive to the Wiccan or the Satanist? Why should their offense be any less of a criteria against a particular symbol than the offense of a majority?

Some of you may remember that case in Utah where the school banned all after-school activities because it didn’t want to allow one particular club to meet. That is one solution to the problem… if you are draconian and ban all imagery, you are actually within your constitutional bounds as a school acting in loco parentis, but it is simply unacceptable to single out cetain groups.

65

—I wouldn’t have called the ACLU. It wasn’t a matter of civil rights, it was a power struggle.—

Regardless of what YOUR intention was, the interest of the ACLU would have been to protect a principle on which such struggles take place, again whether they be about power struggles or anything else.

That your rebellion was merely a power struggle does not mean that it’s purely a power struggle for everyone else. And if a power struggle is over the power to freely practice and observe ones religion, then that struggle is perfectly legitimate.

—When a mother and daughter make a statement that the national press gets involved with it’s hard to believe they don’t know what they’re doing, too.—

For goodness sake: they have every right to appeal to others for help: they were wronged!

—It’s dollars to donuts that their motivation is not religious freedom, but just pure old-fashioned spite.—

Whenever the forces of oppression need help, they can’t always count on mind-readers like you to muse about the motivations of the victims in complaining about abuse.

—I don’t see why the ACLU needs to be involved, unless they’ve decided to defend people who are being shitty to each another.—

They’ve decided to defend people who have had their rights violated, which is what this is a clear example of, plain and simple.

66

Yes, Daniel, I am serious. Your post jumps around a fair amount, but you have only to look up “wicca tax” on Google to find references to bills, some passed, some not, that claim wicca is not a religion. And bear in mind, the government is only arguing about the tax status, not whether the philosophy has any inherent merit.

I’ll repeat, the writers of the constitution had no intent of allowing anybody to say anything, and then call it a religion.

The “we must allow free thinking” line of argument seems rather … er … motivated by political correctness. I’ve also pointed out that these women (and reporters) seem to be involved in a most debased form of rhetoric: pitching emotional, inflammatory newsbites that go down well on 30 second spots on the evening news, and which are purposefully designed not to be answerable.

I’ll repeat: I’ve done this. It’s very easy to convince a crowd their “rights” are being violated. After about 5 minutes of it, they’re ready to march anywhere.

Good old Ben Franklin. I’ve read a bunch of his stuff, and still don’t feel I have the measure of the man. As for the Hellfire Club, well, one gets the impression there aren’t too many laws he wouldn’t have interpreted loosely. But he was surely not representative of the religious scruples of the body of the framers of the the constitution… and definitely not representative of the religious views of the typical American.

67

Apos, several of your points seem based on the foregone conclusion that the girl (and by extrapolation her mother??) were wronged. I’m saying that isn’t necessarily so. I’m also saying it’s very likely the mother created this whole scene to piss off the local community. No religious sentiment involved. Quite the contrary, spite and hate were. Of course, there’s no way to prove it one way or the other, you’re quite right. But this matter seems SO trivial, one can’t help wondering. Is there REALLY a problem with the girl tucking her necklace under her blouse? Or is the magic protection somehow less when it’s not exposed to open air?

“Regardless of what YOUR intention was, the interest of the ACLU would have been to protect a principle on which such struggles take place, again whether they be about power struggles or anything else.”

Small grin. So the ACLU is going to protect me even if I don’t want protection? … my confrontation with the school authorities was between them and me … i was challenging them, not the constitution of the United States. I’m honest enough to admit it.

“That your rebellion was merely a power struggle does not mean that it’s purely a power struggle for everyone else. And if a power struggle is over the power to freely practice and observe ones religion, then that struggle is perfectly legitimate.”

This, I can’t accept. Who is qualified to say what my motivations were besides me, myself? The only other major player in that rebellion was the school district. I’d go so far to say that at certain moments we both enjoyed the confrontation. The argument of the women under discussion doesn’t seem to be religious to an appreciable degree. It does bear the hallmark of innumerable political confrontations I’ve lived through. They go rather predictably like this:

“You can’t tell us what to do!”
“Yes, we can!”
“No, you can’t!”
“Yes, we can. The law is on our side.”
“Oh, yeah? Well the constitution is on our side!”

Big whoop. Massively intelligent religious, political, and social insight in evidence. Not.

68

Noain amount is. If your religious beliefs offend someone, too bad for that someone, they cannot expect the government to make you go away or make you shut up.

Yes.

OK? Probably not. Constitutionally allowed? Yes.

It is Constitutional, yes.

No. You cannot libel, slander, incite violence, threaten the president’s life, or incite rioting or panic.

Seems to me that the girl wants to wear her religious emblem. To hell with those who get offended.

And if its political, that’s okay, too. Political speech is just as protected as religious expression. Particularly in public venues.

Conventions of the community? The community has no right to say “you can’t wear emblems of that religion,” or “you can’t believe that politically.”

Kirk

69

Let’s look at some of those “google tax sites”:

At this site, we learn that a specific Wicca group is having trouble getting tax-exempt status in Florida, despite the fact that they have federal tax-exempt status. “The problem, according to the state, is that whether or not it considers Wicca a religion, the group does not meet all of Florida’s standards to get a tax break.” In other words, Wicca’s status as a religion is irrelevant to this specific case. Next.

At this site, we learn that the Ozark Avalon group was awarded tax-exempt status by a state tax commission after a local tax collector incorrectly refused to recognize Wicca as a valid religion.

And then at site after site, I see that Wicca groups have tax-exempt status – sometimes after court battles, but usually with no court fight mentioned. I’m failing to see anything suggesting that a state or federal government is suspicious of claims by Wicca groups that Wicca constitutes a religion.

That there are local yahoos who think they can get away with flouting the first amendment isn’t an issue. The issue is whether they can get away with it. And from what I’ve seen, doing exactly the search you recommend I do, they can’t.

So I’ll turn this back on you: cite?

Daniel

70

—I’m also saying it’s very likely the mother created this whole scene to piss off the local community.—

If so, then the community still walked right into it. They overreacted and reached beyond their authority in doing so. I have no sympathy.

—Small grin. So the ACLU is going to protect me even if I don’t want protection?..—

No. The ACLU isn’t going to protect YOU. It can’t even bring a case unless it has a willing plantif. But it IS interested in protecting principles that are much more important than you or your particular petty showboating, and it would defend you even if your sole intention was to define the boundaries of legitimate government action against you.

—This, I can’t accept. Who is qualified to say what my motivations were besides me, myself?—

Eh? Who was talking about you in this case? I was talking about the legitimate range of action by private citizens, WHATEVER their reasons. Even if it’s merely to define boundaries of legitimate expression, it’s still perfectly legitimate and deserving of protection. Whether or not you personally want those protections, those protections need thoughtful defense.

And for goodness sake: you are the one running around claiming to know people’s motivations for them.

—I’m also saying it’s very likely the mother created this whole scene to piss off the local community. No religious sentiment involved. Quite the contrary, spite and hate were.—

And I’m saying: it’s always likely that whenever the majority wishes to abuse it’s authority on a minority, some people always crop up to, without any evidence at all, ascribe cynical motives to the victims, because they simply don’t have the guts to outright admit their real prejeduces.

Whenever someone is different, merely trying to live their lives in the same way as everyone else, and they get smacked down anyway, and they complain, bullies always complain that their victims are just being spiteful and meanspirited. I have no doubt that most kid in that school wear crosses proudly all the time, far from tucking them under their blouses. Far from that: I have no doubt that many are evangelical and shove their religion in the faces of others all the time. Yet I don’t see you bitching about that, questioning those motives. And you certainly don’t see this girl or her mother asking anyone to stop wearing their crosses. All they want is to be treated with the rights as anyone else, to not have their motives or convictions attacked.

71

Perhaps, but the Constitutional is a living document. It’s not a document that can be interpreted at face value, you must look to and give weight to the judicial opinions that have informed and molded its interpretation.

They would also be shocked to see a black man Secretary of State, they enslaved blacks, remember? The religious/political/social mores of the 1770s are not a solid foundation for current governmental action.

Being forced to deny or not wear your religious emblems because of the bullying of your classmates is almost as bad as having the administration piss all over your Constitutional rights. If peer pressure had become an issue, it would have been incumbent upon the administration to act, on the girl’s behalf.

Kirk

72

(I’ll be more specific: Partlywarmer, do you have any evidence that in, say, the last ten years, any state or federal government has claimed in court that Wicca does not constitute a Constitutionally-protected religion? I’m not talking about claims about specific organizations, mind you – I’m talking about claiming that the religion itself doesn’t meet the standards for first-amendment protection.)

Daniel

73

**

Dictation of action by “peer pressure” is, at its core, bullying and mob rule.

The ignorant. No one has a right to not be offended. No one has a right to not see religious beliefs they don’t like expressed. Everyone has a right to wear the symbols of their religion. If a Baptist can wear a cross necklace, this girl must be allowed to wear her pentacle. Equality. Equality. Equality.

No not anything, but pretty much anything. Freedom of speech does not end the moment you begin upsetting people. Particularly in a publicly funded place like a school.

Kirk

74

The inverted cross is not Satanic. An inverted cross can just as easily be a Christian symbol as a Satanic one. Catholics use it quite regularly to represent St. Peter and the Papacy.

Kirk

75

Note: Not all Christian groups buy into symbolic use of the cross.

Note: The swastika suspended from a necklace is a common Buddhist symbol.

We Christians who don’t use the cross as a symbol can be as offended as we want to be by other people wearing that. What we cannot do is dictate that they not wear it. Same goes for the swastika worn by the Buddhist and, yes, the pentacle worn by the girl in the public school.

76

Still is a symbol on the Papal throne.

An upside crucifix, on the other hand, usually is Satanic.

77

Oops, my bad. I tend to use cross and crucifix interchangeably. The crucifix is what I was talking about in my earlier post.

78

True, stated early on. Then JDDelerious and others made the “religion-neutral”* observation. To wit, the school board cannot cherry pick religious symbols to permit or not.

Some further observation, how will the school board defend their contention that the penatcle is “disruptive” without, at the same time, conceding it has religious significance?

I find the irony hilarious, here that the pentacle and paganism generally predate Christianity. The “disruption” comes from the Christian interpretation of the symbol. See, also, the Easter Bunny and Christmas tree. Same principle, opposite result.

Bottom line: they will end up banning all jewelery, crosses, Stars of David, pentacles, swastikas. Or, they will have to allow all of them. No, I refuse to take wagers. If the courts screw this up or drag it out for years, oops, I was wrong.

*anything else should constitute an Establishment Clause violation.

79

I think you’re missing an important point here, which is that the ban on wearing pentacles is just the first step in the Waxahachie School Board’s plan to establish a totalitarian fundamentalist Christian theocracy in which all other religions will be suppressed and their adherents put to death.

80

Partly Warmer, a friend of mine’s physical handicaps were grounds for ridicule and mockery from kindergarten through high school. They were mild enough for her to attend school, including gym class, but her appearance and speech were a bit strange. You’ve spoken of peer pressure being used to discourage that which is different as a good thing. Having been on the receiving end, I beg to differ. Tell me, if you ate lunch standing up because no one would let you sit next to them, would you agree? What put me on the receiving end of this peer pressure was staying friends with my friend, even though that friendship did appear to offend community standards. Since I defended her, I was probably far more in-your-face about it than anyone wearing a mere piece of jewelry. Should I have given up my friendship with her because it offended community standards? If not, then what’s the difference between that and wearing a cross?

Community standards can be wrong. In this case, IMHO, they are. One should not have to be like the majority to have the privilege of walking down a hallway wearing a symbol of one’s religion without being harassed.

Also, on a purely practical note, as I’ve said before, I wish Christians would get the idea that harassing people and telling them they’re going to hell is a lousy way to make converts.

CJ