Posted on 12/05/2013 10:35:10 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
As Christmas nears, two local school districts find themselves being drawn unwillingly into the battle against religion in the public square — but both districts maintain that allowing students to participate in traditional Christmas concerts does not violate anyone’s rights.
Choirs from Glacier, Flathead and Whitefish high schools will perform as planned today and Friday during the “Peace on Earth Community Christmas Celebration” despite receiving requests from the Freedom from Religion Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union of Montana to cancel.
The event in question is billed as a celebration of “the birth of our savior Jesus Christ,” featuring hundreds of nativity displays. The school choirs are listed among more than 10 musical performances at the two-day event at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Kalispell.
Andrew Seidel, staff attorney for the Wisconsin-based nonprofit Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Niki Zupanic, the Public Policy Director for the American Civil Liberties Union, stated in their letters that public schools’ participation in the religious event suggests an appearance that they were endorsing or advancing a specific religious message or denomination.
“The main concern to us is to have public schools in this case taking their students essentially to a worship service. It’s factually no different then taking them to church and having them sing in a church choir,” Seidel said, representing the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
The foundation was also involved in an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking removal of a Jesus statue located on national forest land on Big Mountain.
Kalispell Public Schools Superintendent Darlene Schottle said during a phone interview Tuesday that the students’ participation does not mean the district endorses or promotes a religion or religious message. She said it is simply an opportunity for students to perform for the community at a public venue and does not...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyinterlake.com ...
Freedom From Religion Foundation acting up again.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
Make sure that the secular humanists don’t “violate anyone’s rights.”
Volating the rights of free speech and freedom of religion don’t count?!?!?!
“prohibits the making of any law ... impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech”
Would the outrage from the ACLU and Freedom From Religion be the same if muzzie foot baths were placed in the “public square”? And it’s not just the public venues. In my old neighborhood in the Bronx there’s a PRIVATE house along Pelham Parkway that each Christmas is lavishly decorated, so much so it’s become a tourist attraction and was even mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records. The owners of this house have been doing this for years, and even though this is a largely Jewish neighborhood nobody ever had a problem with this. Yet, the ACLU and certain atheist groups hired sleazebag lawyers to examine the NYC building codes and zoning ordinances to find anything that would put this house in violation.
It is doubtful that any student will be forced to participate. Choir is not a required course.
Seems the anti-American FFRF and fellow enemy Foreign or Domestic in the Communistic and Queer ACLU think they Own the Bill of Rights. They do NOT. I’d even bet the FFRF and the ACLU in their rejection of God and misrepresentation of Law and of public education in America have placed a very indelible laser target on themselves from the God they are enemy of.
Rather funny that they don’t complain about religion in Predominately black schools. The NC A&T radio station plays gospel every morning.
http://wnaa-online.ncat.edu/index.php/wnaa-fm-shows.html
Well, they also are attempting to advance the religion of the god that they are the bondslaves of--the god of this world. Are they not trying to exercise their beliefs of their group by suppressing the beliefs of another group? They don't want the school to pay for the transportation out of their taxes? Education is always an application of morality to human decency in work and recreation.
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