Religious Holiday Vote Draws Heat

tbo.com ^ | November 1, 2005 | MARILYN BROWN

[mlc9852]

TAMPA -- More than 100 pleading, threatening and indignant e-mails have streamed into Hillsborough County School Board offices, some calling board members "gutless," "morons," and "a bunch of wimps."

At issue is the board's vote to drop religious holidays from its school calendar, a decision that has drawn fire from national media, local officials and citizens.

Hillsborough School Board members voted Oct. 25 to drop Yom Kippur and Good Friday from the 2006-07 school calendar, designating no religious holidays off except Christmas. Students may be absent on their religious holidays without penalty or restriction on the number of days.

[From One - Many]

School Board trying to be important, when
they aren't....

What if God decided to delete some days?

School Board trying to be important, would
decree the days be reinstated?

Foolishness......on the part of the School Board.

[Pio]

Good. Maybe parents will pull their kids out of the athiest govenment schools, vote against public funding of education and bring the whole system down. Baptists have already called for this and the Roman Catholics have always had a system for educating their own.

[HOTTIEBOY]

I have an idea.
If your family celebrates Yom Kippur or Good Friday, then celebrate it. Don't worry what everyone else is doing. Don't send your kids to school that day.

[Louis Foxwell]

I have an idea. If your family celebrates Yom Kippur or Good Friday, then celebrate it. Don't worry what everyone else is doing. Don't send your kids to school that day.

Parents of faith will keep their children home in any case. That is not the issue.

Government disrespect for religion is the issue.

[HOTTIEBOY]

Governments job is to govern the people according to the constitution. Church's job is to spread faith. I don't like it any more than you, but the constitution states that the government is not to be involved in religion. If the government disregards religion, it is only doing what our constitution tells it to do.

What i don't understand is the schools preaching diversity, but stomping down anything Christian.

[soltice]

Amen to that. Religion has no legal basis in schools. Neither does Congress.

If a local school board, elected by the citizens votes to not have "religious holidays" officially recognized BUT allows for those to celebrate it according to their faith, then THAT is the basis of our CONSTITUITION.

Bravo to this school board.

Congress shall make NO lAWS "establishing nor prohibiting" [ paraphrased of course ]

[JamesP81]

Governments job is to govern the people according to the constitution.

Uhh, no, it isn't. Government's job is to protect the people's inalienable, God-given rights. It is not intended to 'govern' people. We are to do that ourselves.

Sheesh. The state of history teaching in our educational system is appalling.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Students may be absent on their religious holidays without penalty or restriction on the number of days.

Problem solved. Though I'm sure we'll still hear rants on how the school board killed Terri.

[mlc9852]

What does a local school board have to do with Congress?

[mlc9852]

You are so right. Maybe they should spend a few more days in school learning the history of the U.S.

[KosmicKitty]

Pull your kids out & homeschool

If enough people do that, there won't be a need for the school board, will there?

[onja]

If I understand it correctly, it makes sense. Why should Christians get out for Rosh Hashanah or Ramadan if we don't care a bit at all about them? Just let them get out.

[mlc9852]

Unfortunately, that just isn't an option for some.

[Hoof Hearted]

" Congress shall make NO LAWS "establishing nor prohibiting"

.the rest of the sentence is:.( any religion or the FREE EXCECISE THEREOF..)

Yeah! Only school boards can do that, right? Please use the complete phrase in the constitution instead of a 3 dot edit of the text to twist to your desired meaning.

[I still care]

I doubt it.

Here in FL the libs have discovered a wonderful method to circumvent the conservative legislature.

Put amendments on the FL constitution. We have voted in everything from getting rid of pig cages to not allowing smoking in restaurants to building a train.

They cobble together leftist amendments that sound wonderful, put a TV ad blitz together, and everything ends up on the FL Constitution.

Several years ago they got an amendment in saying how the main priority of FL should be public education, or some such stuff. They pass class size, teacher ratios, etc. - if it sounds fuzzy, people will vote it in. It's the lib's trump card.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

There will be a two week "WINTER BREAK" so that socialist teachers and administrators who hate Christianity can still kick back and pull down some perks.

And pull down their pants for a big pervert festival and gay parades...

[mrmargaritaville]

If there is truly to be a "separation of church and state" as the liberals claim (as opposed to a "non establishment" clause) then I want to know why-
Schools are not open and conducting classes on Sunday?
Why the post office does not deliver mail to me on Sunday?
I want to get more work out of these public employees for the tax payer funded salaries they pull down. They should work on Sunday.

[soltice]

If you read the article, you would see that the board is NOT prohibiting anybody from anything religious. The kids may leave the school with their parents to celebrate their religious holidays.

How would you feel if Ramadan was an official (day/week/month) off holiday?

If you lived in a mostly muslim community, you could see that happen in your local community school. If you did not like that, you could move or put your kids into a private school.

What? you would NOT like that? So would NOT officially recognizing a specific church holiday (Good Friday is NOT universal holiday for all Christian Churches) be a good thing in that case?

I would NOT expect a local community school where the population is mainly muslim to take a Christmas break, but rather take a Ramadan break. and CONGRESS has no business demanding compliance with a specific church.

To be "Republican" apparently does not mean conservative anymore.