Posted on 07/01/2006 9:48:22 AM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
This is a perfect example of several current psychoses running through the seedy underbelly of our culture today. This one story reveals the selfishness, stupidity, and hypocrisy of the anti-religious as well as utter lack of knowledge about our nation's history and form of government.
A school board in West Virginia is being sued by two "civil liberties" groups -- read that to mean groups promoting just THEIR point of view, the rest of you be damned -- because the school happened to have a portrait of Jesus displayed in the hallway.
Did I mention it has been there for thirty years? So it isn't just something someone threw up recently.
So, the ACLU and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State have decided that, thirty years after the fact, this whole Jesus thing is all evil and stuff! Imagine the "harm" that has been done lo these many years to children for three decades??
Oh, the humanities!
Now here is the selfishness of the report. This suit was filed by the two "civil liberties" groups on behalf of Harold Sklar and Jacqueline McKenzie, "whose children attended or will attend the school", as the report makes clear. To recap, one parent has kids gone from the school and no longer under the evil glare of that Jesus picture and the other doesn't even have kids IN the school at all!
So, what is preventing the parent whose children WILL attend the school from sending them to a private school that holds better to her atheist line of thinking? Who says she can't move to another school district, one that doesn't have that bad guy pictured on its walls? Maybe this parent might find a school that has a picture of Marx or someone that might hew closer to their anti-religious views?
Still, how is it a support of "civil liberties" to take away a portrait of Jesus to satisfy two people when that portrait obviously didn't offend hundreds if not thousands of others? Are these two people's sensibilities, sensibilities that can be assuaged in a myriad of other ways, more important than that of perhaps thousands of others?
Apparently the Communist founded ACLU and the illogically founded AUSC&S think it perfectly sensible to promote the "feelings" of two people over that of thousands of others.
Isn't this Hillary's view of education?
Basic Lessons: A well-trained Montessori teacher spends a lot of time during training practicing the many basic lessons with materials in all areas. She/he must pass difficult written and oral exams on these lessons in order to be certified. She is trained to recognize a child's readiness—according to age, ability, and interest—for a specific lesson, and is prepared to guide individual progress. Although the teacher plans lessons for each child for each day, she will bow to the interests of a child following a passion.
Areas of Study Linked: All subjects are interwoven; history, art, music, math, astronomy, biology, geology, physics, and chemistry are not isolated from each other and a child studies them in any order he chooses, moving through all in a unique way for each child. At any one time in a day all subjects—math, language, science, history, geography, art, music, etc.—are being studied, at all levels.
The Schedule: There is at least one 3-hour period of uninterrupted, work time each day, not broken up by required group lessons or lessons by specialists. Adults and children respect concentration and do not interrupt someone who is busy at a task. Groups form spontaneously but not on a predictable schedule. Specialists are available at times but no child is asked to interrupt a self-initiated project to attend these lessons.
Assessment: There are no grades, or other forms of reward or punishment, subtle or overt. Assessment is by portfolio and the teacher's observation and record keeping. The real test of whether or not the system is working lies in the accomplishment and behavior of the children, their happiness, maturity, kindness, and love of learning, concentration, and work.
So, put up pictures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan alongside Jesus, name the gallery "Great Men of Vision", and then watch the ACLU's heads explode.
Well, what was positively looney was the notion that AU has any intent other than obliterating Christianity.
But Pecel doesn't simply mean an image; King James was trying to obliterate an illiterate culture and, therefore, he flat out perpetuated a lie. Pecel is never used in any context in the bible, other than refering to idols. And that is a necessary context for what follows, "or any likeness of anything..."
Believing this means banning any image is like Tommy's response to his step-father saying, "you didn't see nothing, you didn't hear nothing, and you ain't gonna say nothing"; it's a preposterous generalization. The bible is not at all ambiguous that this is not what was meant: the Israelites are instructed to create for themselves an image of a seraphim, and to gaze apon it for healing!
How is that not idolatry? By the iconoclast concept, it plainly is idolatry. But it is not, because the seraphim are understood to be servants of God. Likewise, it was not idolatry for Abraham to bow ("shachah," elsewhere translated as "worship") to angels. The offense is obeying a second will ("diamon," from which we get the word, "demon") besides God's.
It is the right thing to do; the only undemocratic irony here is that the plaintiffs only have standing by imputation.
Another way to look at it is that the ACLU couldn't find an offended member of the active class of students or parents.
But, given the current state of the law, the suit should and will succeed.
Anything else will mock the rule of law.
No such case will be won as long as people continue to worship the law.
Bookmark.
You're on the site since June 10.....?
Your comment makes no sense. so maybe you are a troll.
Viking Kitties alert.
It was a joke. Lighten up.
Until we find a conservative version of George Soros, who will fund an organization who's sole purpose is to sue the pants off the ACLU until it is destroyed, we will keep having these small battles with the US's fifth column.
Yes - a Godless one.
Forgive my ignorance, but when did any angel accept worship?
>>Re: Silly comment: all Protestants are Heretics. What about those belonging to Christiandom preceeding the Roman Catholic Church? For those of us without some extra-Biblical teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, the claim is groundless.<<
Definition: Protestant
Any Christian belonging to a sect or denomination descending from those that seceded from the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation. Originally it referred to those who adhered to the doctrine of Martin Luther and who protested in 1529 against the decree of the Diet of Spires commanding submission to the authority of Rome. The word comes from roots meaning to testify or witness in public. The term does not include those churches who broke with Rome either before or after the Reformation. It thus excludes the Orthodox from whom Rome split in 1054 and the Old Catholics who split in 1870. Most Anglicans reject the term, although it was used by the "Protestant Episcopal Church" in the United States, which broke off from the Church of England in 1789. Episcopalians today are split on the use of the term.
Don't you know that freedom is for everyone except for whites, males or Christians?
Minister in an apostate church, he. (*sniff*) He has the same "look" of corruption as Sen. Kennedy and Justice Harry Blackmun...the devil's disciples all.
That's a good idea. If you really want to put them in a quandry, put Bill Clinton's portrait up there too. They might fritz out.
Actually, I do. That is, my step-daughter went and son goes, go to a private school that uses the Montessori Method. It's not a religious school, inasmuch as it does not teach any specific religion. Neither, however, does it bar religion from coming up in the classroom. When my son was in Kindergarten, for example, I was asked to come in and talk about Hanukkah to his class.
This past year, my 4th grade son was doing 7th grade math this past year and, on standardized tests, scores at high school levels. My son doesn't always look forward to going to school, but neither does he dred it.
And at least one of the teachers has Karl Hess's Capitalism for Kids on her desk.
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