Posted on 03/22/2010 7:07:33 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court ruling allowing a school district to veto an orchestral religious piece at high school graduation survived Supreme Court review Monday over a dissent by a conservative justice, who said the decision would stifle freedom of expression.
The justices denied a 12th-grade musician's appeal of a ruling in September by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The appeals court said school officials' decision to keep the graduation program secular was a reasonable effort to avoid a constitutional controversy and did not violate students' rights.
The ruling, in a case from Washington state, is binding on federal courts in the circuit's nine states, which include California. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said Monday that the case has disturbing implications for the nearly 10 million public school students in those states.
"School administrators in some communities may choose to avoid 'controversy' by banishing all musical pieces with 'religious connotations,' " Alito said in a dissent from the court's refusal to grant review. Such review requires four votes among the nine justices.
The appeals court ruling might be extended beyond the context of religious music at graduation and lead to "wide-ranging censorship of student speech that expresses controversial ideas," Alito said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
He gets it!
Unfortunately the judges that proferred the majority opinion also get it....
So you can sing the National Anthem and say the pledge at a graduation (both which mention God) but you can’t play music that mentions God?
Schizophrenic.
No surprise, as it’s the Nineth Circus Court of Appeals.
some thought “Ave Maria” too much..
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The case arose at a high school in Everett, Wash., in 2006, a year after the school choir’s performance of a religious piece at graduation drew complaints from some students and residents.
When members of the school’s woodwind ensemble proposed playing an instrumental version of “Ave Maria,” by the German composer Franz Biebl, the district superintendent decreed that all graduation music should be secular.
What do you want to be that if a rapper sued because he could not shout racial slurs into a microphone, this would be an entirely different decision.
They had a problem with an instrumental version of a religious song? Were they worried that those who don’t know the words would be converted into Catholics by melody alone?
Hold the ceremony elsewhere without school officials.
That court is full of radicals chosen by Clinton, Carter, and Johnson.
The piece was instrumental, anyway. No words to get offended at.
Or, as Michael Savage says, “The Ninth Circus Court of Schmeals.
Maybe not:
Ariz. Church Fights Ban Against Meeting in Homes
This should be used for the appeal. It's utterly ridiculous.
“The piece was instrumental, anyway. No words to get offended at.”
Oh, that’s even better! /sarc
Every single parent and other family members should show up with the prerecorded song on their phone, and at a predetermined time all should arise, like in a concert and start playing the music.
Who are they going to arrest?
Starting to print
“I am not ashamed of Jesus Christ” t shirts with his picture on them, if Liberals are not ashamed of their Che and others of his ilk, why should we.
We have to once again start facing the lions and whips.
I remember singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” for our 6th grade Christmas program.
Times have definitely changed.
I’ve read where proms are held as private events. Perhaps parents can hold private graduation ceremonies.
One of the “older women” friends of my youth was very offended that when she married a catholic husband in his Church they forbid her Wagner’s Wedding March from Lohengrin. The Church has moved on I think.
Washington is the new Rome.
George Washington must be spinning in his grave and wanting his good name back.
Welcome to the USSA, comrades.
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