Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Posted on 05/20/2005 8:38:59 PM PDT by Crackingham
A public school prohibited a second grader from singing a religious song at a talent show, prompting a lawsuit Friday alleging violation of the girl's constitutional rights. A federal judge declined an emergency request to compel Frenchtown Elementary School to allow 8-year-old Olivia Turton to sing "Awesome God" at the Friday night show, but allowed the lawsuit to go forward.
School officials in the western New Jersey community had said the performance would be inappropriate at a school event. A message seeking comment from a school board attorney about the judge's ruling was not immediately returned.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler in Trenton to consider the case later came just hours before Olivia had hoped to sing the pop song by the late Rich Mullins.
One verse has these lyrics: "Our God is an awesome God/He reigns from heaven above/with wisdom, pow'r and love/Our God is an awesome God."
The girl was told May 10 that she could not sing the song. Her mother, Maryann Turton, protested at a school board meeting that night. She was told three days later by Joyce Brennan, the school superintendent and principal, that the religious content made it inappropriate at school, according to the lawsuit filed by the child's parents Friday morning.
The lawsuit charges that the school board violated Olivia's constitutional rights to freedom of speech and due process.
Frenchtown?
Now here is one good lawsuit that I would approve of.
Courtesy of www.kidbrothers.net :
When He rolls up His sleeves
He ain't just putting on the ritz
(Our God is an awesome God)
There's thunder in His footsteps
And lightning in His fists
(Our God is an awesome God)
And the Lord wasn't joking
When He kicked 'em out of Eden
It wasn't for no reason
That He shed His blood
His return is very close
And so you better be believing that
Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God
And when the sky was starless
In the void of the night
(Our God is an awesome God)
He spoke into the darkness
And created the light
(Our God is an awesome God)
Judgement and wrath He poured out on Sodom
Mercy and grace He gave us at the cross
I hope that we have not
Too quickly forgotten that
Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God (Our God is an awesome God)
He reigns from heaven above (He reigns from heaven above)
With wisdom, power, and love (With wisdom, power, and love)
Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God
Our God is an awesome God
Copyright 1988 - Edward Grant, Inc.
Yeah, the second verse alone would get this one kicked out of publik skool.
As long as the public school system is ruled over by ignorant, if not hostile, leftists then these situations will continue to arise.
Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey town.
I'll bet there is no rules governing songs such as this for the talent contest. Therefore, I believe the parents will win this lawsuit.
This is sickening. These people don't believe in ridding the public sphere of "religious dogma" -- they want to impose secularism on everyone. What's next -- you can't hum Amazing Grace to yourself in a public park? You can't drive down public streets with a Jesus fish on your car? I mean, these people are so parochial and dogmatic, it's unbelievable. And WE'RE the narrow-minded ones...
and I would vote down every tax levy for this skool district over and over again.
NO MONEY for publik skools until they stop this garbage !!!
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
This little girl's First Amendment rights have been violated.
We are talking speech police here. I think the school will lose the suit or settle.
Are you asleep?
Oh shut up. I bet you'd feel the same for "Joy to the world" too or practically 3/4 of all Christmas carols.
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.
Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.
You are probably right. It's often the paranoid principal of the school that causes the problem. After my daughter's elementary school dropped all Christian religious songs from the Holiday Festival (they left in a couple Jewish religious songs of course), I contacted the school superintendent (Fairfax County, Virginia) and asked for a copy of the rules. He gave me the rules and also a letter explaining that as long as all religions were treated fairly, and no religion was advocated over any other religion, that there could be religious content in classroom, concerts, plays, etc. The rules stated that. It was merely the weasly cowardly principal of the school that made the ban.
The public school system in America needs to be eliminated. We did okay from 1776 to around 1900 without it.
ping for later pingout.
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