Posted on 07/11/2005 11:13:58 AM PDT by Terriergal
School bench message said too religious
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Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer
MARIETTA - A simple message greets students arriving at Marietta High School - Jesus Loves You!
The words are inscribed on a bench located outside of the school's cafeteria and near the spot where school buses drop off and pick up students. Private donations from the school's PTA paid for the bench as part of a larger fund-raising campaign more than four years ago at the school, located on Dallas Highway just west of downtown Marietta.
While school officials say the bench has been in its current location for several years, one Marietta parent is now raising questions about the "overly religious" message it conveys.
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David Bernknopf - a former CNN producer and media consultant whose son and daughter attend nearby A.L. Burruss Elementary - said he recently noticed the bench and asked Marietta City Schools officials to look into the legality of having a religious message displayed at a public school.
"I saw it, I questioned it and I asked them what their stance was on it," he said.
The controversy comes just a week after the U.S. Supreme Court issued two divergent rulings relating to displays of the Ten Commandments at courthouses in Kentucky and Texas.
No lawsuit is planned at this point, Bernknopf said, and he has "no issue so far" with the bench. But he said his stance on the bench will depend on the legal opinion provided by the school system about the bench's presence at the school.
"I think its best at this point to give them to opportunity to figure out where they stand," Bernknopf said.
Marietta Superintendent Dr. Emily Lembeck said her office now is in the process of investigating who specifically donated the money to install the bench, how long it has been at the school and whether the message inscribed on the bench complies with the law. Attorney Clem Doyle represents the Marietta School Board.
So far, Dr. Lembeck, who officially assumed her post July 1, said her investigation shows the bench was first funded as part of a Marietta High School PTA fund-raising event in 2000 or 2001 and has been at the school since the new campus opened in August 2001 under then-principal Gordon Pritz. Who specifically commissioned the bench as part of the fund-raising drive remains uncertain, Dr. Lembeck said.
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"That bench has been there for years," she said.
Two years ago, the Marietta school board approved a policy governing the names of individuals placed on benches, rooms or in others locations in local schools in exchange for a private donation. The district, however, has no policy regarding the types of messages that private groups can display in exchange for a donation, Dr. Lembeck said.
"This really has never come up before," she said. "It boils down to what the law tells us, and until we see what the law tells us and we get all that together, we can't take a position."
Asked about the issue on Tuesday, Marietta school board members said they were unaware that the bench with its "Jesus Loves You!" message even existed at the school until Bernknopf questioned it.
But if the situation came down to using school system funds to defend the bench in court, many board members said preserving the bench would not be their top priority.
"I don't want to take away from our main core purpose, which is educating our children," board chairwoman Irene Berens said. "We have tried not to focus on those things as an issue in our schools because we want to focus on the education of our children."
"I'm a Southern Baptist from way back and I believe that Jesus loves me, but I also believe that my job is to educate students," she said. "I hate for this issue to take away from what we need to be focusing on. There's a time and a place for everything."
School board member Tom Smith agreed, saying that he would not want to use money earmarked for education to fund a lawsuit to protect a religiously-themed bench at the high school.
"My biggest fear is that this is going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal cost that otherwise might go to education," he said.
But Smith also said he worries about the possible First Amendment debate on the other side of the issue and whether the group that originally donated the bench could claim that their rights to free speech and religious expression are being infringed upon.
"The government cannot encourage religious expression, but it can't prevent it either," Smith said.
The neighboring Cobb County School District currently is embroiled in its own legal battle over the separation of church and state. The district is now appealing a federal court ruling requiring Cobb to remove stickers related to evolution placed inside district science books in 2002. The sticker reads that evolution is "a theory and not a fact," and opponents argued that the disclaimer was religiously motivated.
Like her district's board members, Dr. Lembeck said her primary goal would remain the education of Marietta children rather than defending the bench and its message.
"What we don't want is any kind of controversy that will take our attention away from kids," she said. "That's our primary obligation."
dburch@mdjonline.com
No! Not THE David!?
I'm suddenly dizzy. Maybe I'll feel better if I fall to my knees and press my forehead to the ground...
On the other hand, if privately raised funds pay for benches to be placed on the school grounds, and the groups that fund those benches can place messages on those benches, then to censor one message because its content is "a blatent and gratuitous religious message" violates that group's free speech that is specifically protected by the same amendment that you have to twist nine ways to Sunday to get the "no government endorsement of religion" principle you seem to hold.
Wow. I am actually on the scene for this one.
I still don't want my kids hanging around people who may be putting down my faith in front of my children.
I also don't want my children around someone who thinks we are "bloggers".
Bwahahhahaa!!!
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