Parents in the Wilson County School District in Lebanon, Tennessee, were allowed to put up posters about various activities and interests. One of those was for a Bible study, put up by the group Praying Parents and, naturally enough, the poster referred to "God." However, a judge forced the school to remove any reference to God from the posters. This year, a higher court overturned that decision. The battle required the assistance of the Alliance Defense Fund, a non-profit organization that helps to defend religious liberty.
One has to wonder how this ever came up in the first place. The usual premise is that such a poster is unconstitutional. The only words in the Constitution that could be part of the argument are "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." So apparently parents in a school who hand a poster mentioning God somehow equates to Congress making a law establishing a religion. Seems like a reach to me, but maybe my copy of the Constitution is wrong. Even if one refers to the several cases in the last 60 years where courts have found previously-unknown meaning in the First Amendment, no court has prohibited such actions.
The Constitution was written in plain language for the most part. Certainly the wording of the First Amendment is clear enough for a non-lawyer to understand. That was the intention of the Founders when they wrote the Constitution. It begins with "We the People..." and that is who it is made for. I believe that if judges would try to base judgments on the actual wording and intent of the Constitution and less on what they think it should have said, we would not see so many cases where one judge says "no" and another judge says "yes" on the same issue.
According to the Rutherford Institute, the following is applicable based on previous court decisions:
"However, where student groups that meet for nonreligious activities are permitted to advertise or announce their meetings—for example, by advertising in a student newspaper, making announcements on a student activities bulletin board or public address system, or handing out leaflets—school authorities may not discriminate against groups who meet to pray."
Read the original story here: United Press International
1 comment:
It's interesting how the Council for American-Islmic Relations can be permitted to be do a presentation at Friendswood Jr. HS in Friendswood,TX & tell students that Moses & Jesus were only prophets, & the only god is Allah, but let a Christian get within a thousand yards of a school with a Bible, & we never hear the end of it as well as it going to court just about every time.
Most of these judges are trying to further an agenda rather than decide such cases on their merits & presented evidence.
Dirk
THE FIRST AMENDMENT, NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT II
http://tsalagiman2.blogspot.com/
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