Posted on 05/22/2017 8:05:00 PM PDT by marshmallow
AUGUSTA, Maine (BP) -- A Baptist mother of two has filed religious discrimination and retaliation charges against a school system that threatened to fire her for privately telling a coworker she'd pray for him.
Attorneys for Toni Richardson, an educational technician with the Augusta (Maine) School Department, are awaiting a response from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regarding the complaint filed May 16. First Liberty Institute of Plano, Texas and the Maine law firm Eaton Peabody filed the complaint May 16 regarding the September 2016 incident at Cony School.
"We want to make sure that teachers and employees everywhere understand that you can certainly talk about your faith in private conversations at work," First Liberty Senior Counsel Jeremy Dys told Baptist Press, "and that no employee, whether at a school district or elsewhere, should be punished or be threatened with dismissal for engaging in private conversations that say something like, 'I'm praying for you.'"
The coworker, a fellow member of a Baptist church in Augusta where Richardson leads the nursing home ministry, thanked her for her prayers, First Liberty said in a press release. But an Augusta Schools administrator "interrogated" Richardson, "asking whether she had ever identified herself to coworkers as a Christian or privately told a colleague she was praying for him," First Liberty said.
Four days later, the school told Richardson in a coaching memorandum that "she could not use 'phrases that integrate public and private belief systems' while at school," and threatened her with discipline or termination. The school cited the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, commonly known as separation of church and state.
(Excerpt) Read more at bpnews.net ...
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me”
Perhaps the offended snowflake would have preferred “A pox on you!”
The “offended third party”.
I lost a good electrician the same way.
When prayer is considered an act of sedition, it is time for all who love Him to pray.
Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.
It’s just like the Soviet Union used to be! What a country!
Closer by the day.
Just don’t upset the muslim “prayer” space.
while it’s true we need to render, it’s also true that we need to fight to retain what we can IF we can- it is against the law to discriminate against someone for their religious beliefs- she should be bringing this to court- Evil prevails when good people do nothing
and just for the record- praying for someone is NOT establishing a state mandated religion punishable by penalty if not obeyed for crying out loud
I agree. Prayer does not belong to Caesar; that was settled in ancient Babylon with Nebuchadnezzer’s statue and the fiery furnace. We render prayer to God, and if Caesar says no, we say that we must obey God rather than men. If the law is on our side, as it is in the US, then we use the law to God’s glory, but if the law changes, or tyrants who refuse the rule of law arise, then pray becomes an act of sedition, and we pray all the more because a lawless Caesar brings sedition upon himself.
No, but a coaching memorandum [from an agent of the state] saying that "she could not use 'phrases that integrate public and private belief systems' while at school," certainly qualifies.
The religion of the state isn't only a coercive belief system, it's all about projection. It's even got the very definition of fascism projected in there.
And you wonder why kids today are so messed up.....
sorry that is not true- noone is being coerced-
sorry i htink i read your post wrong- Are you arguing that a state employee can’t express their religious faith because it can be said to be ‘coercive?”
The state is indeed coercive in its many tactics for getting people to “agree” with it, while projecting its coercion onto regular folks who are just going about their day being decent, thoughtful, and kind.
again, not sure what you’re saying? She had no right to say she was praying for her coworkers who may have needed prayer?
Sorry, I missed your follow-up comment, but I clarified for you in my reply regardless.
Guess it’s one of those days! :)
The woman did nothing wrong as it appears from this report. The state acts like she’s the bully, when the state is the biggest bully of them all, like those anti-bullying campaigns in schools, run by bullies who exclaim, “Zero tolerance!”
The state is the queen of virtue-signaling. The more it proclaims how righteous it is, the more evil it is busy plotting.
prolly my fault for misunderstanding- got a wicked cold going right now- not thinking clearly-
Ahh, so sorry.
I hope and pray it’s gone in short order.
Uh oh, I offered to pray. :)
Take good care.
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