For Second Time, High School Forced to Reverse Ban on Christian Student Group

The Daily Signal ^ | October 12, 2014 | Gabriella Morrongiello

[george76]

High school students in Long Island, N.Y., were recently denied the right to establish a club for Christian students by their school administrators. This marks the second time they’ve run into trouble.

Last year, John Raney, a 17-year-old student at Ward Melville High School, created Students United in Faith as an extracurricular club where Christian and non-Christian students could come together to discuss faith and pursue hunger-relief charity projects.

“I wanted to start the club because I thought it would provide a safe space for Christians to meet and talk about their faith,” Raney told Fox News.

Administrators at Raney’s high school were at first unwilling to allow the Christian club because of its religious nature. Superintendent Cheryl Pedisich later lifted the ban, however, and apologized after the Liberty Institute, a Texas-based legal organization dedicated to defending religious liberty, threatened to intervene.

Just a few weeks into the new school year, Raney received news that he and other Christian students were prohibited from forming a club yet again.

Upon being contacted by Raney, the Liberty Institute sent a letter to the school district advising it to accommodate the Christian club under the Equal Access Law, a federal statute enacted in 1984 mandating federally funded educational institutions to allow such clubs.

[DoughtyOne]

The Left is so twisted.

It professes to stand up for everyone's rights no matter how big or small.  Then it jumps right in with both feet and denies the majority their rights.


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[Diana in Wisconsin]

“I wanted to start the club because I thought it would provide a safe space for Christians to meet and talk about their faith,” Raney told Fox News.

Do what I do. My ‘club’ meets deep in the woods at night. We read our Bibles by candlelight in a secure bunker with manned, armed patrols and LOTS of tripwires.

Of course, the kids that want to read the Koran at your school are encouraged to do so, with no consequences whatsoever.

*Rolleyes*

THIS is where we’re heading as a Nation! Thanks, @#$%^&* Socialists!

[Rockitz]

These administrators need to be individually fined for subjecting the school to legal action.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Liberals today think they have a right to the squash religious freedom of Christians in public settings and anything that has even a hint of government involvement. But they also want government in every sphere of society, so they really just want it wiped out altogether. They don’t feel the same threat from Islam, however. That the world hates Christianity but not Islam says something good about Christianity.

[GeronL]

Some schools set aside an empty room for Muslim kids to pray while denying the right of Christians to utter the words God or Jesus.

[Arthur McGowan]

How about a Christian starting a group called The Free Speech Club, whose purpose would be for students to get together and talk about what they want to talk about? Then, at the their meetings, they could talk about Christianity.

[FR_addict]

I like your idea.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Our side needs to use the old aclu trick. Threaten to sue the hell out of the school. Those clowns will knock off this crap. All it takes is a threat.

[Bryanw92]

>>Do what I do. My ‘club’ meets deep in the woods at night. We read our Bibles by candlelight in a secure bunker with manned, armed patrols and LOTS of tripwires.

Or they could do what Christians do: meet in public, read the bible, pray, and share the gospel until actual arrests begin. Then, move indoors but not meet secretly until the raids begin. Then, move to secret locations where other believers can find them until the spies start exposing them.

Only then, do you move out in the woods behind fences and armed patrols—and the government will provide the locations. That’s when a national revival begins.

[Rodamala]

These are the Good Guys Arthur spoke of... not the ACLU:

http://www.thefire.org/category/cases/religious-liberty/

[lowbridge]

Bump

[vladimir998]

“Threaten to sue the hell out of the school. Those clowns will knock off this crap. All it takes is a threat.”

I don’t know if that works the way we might think. I think liberals don’t mind getting sued by Christians. Soon they’ll have lots of atheist lawyers who will take the case pro bono too. Mark my words.

[Blood of Tyrants]

The liberals who propose this need to be made to pay individually, out of their own pockets. Then they will stop.

[GeronL]

bump

[Arthur McGowan]

Freedom of religion logically implies that the government has no capacity to decide or discern what is “religion” and what is not “religion.”

This is the absurdity of teachers’ grabbing students’ Bibles, or forbidding students to write essays about Jesus, etc., on the grounds that these are “religious.”