Posted on 06/02/2011 5:48:40 PM PDT by metmom
A federal judge has ordered a Texas school district to prohibit public prayer at a high school graduation ceremony.
Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery’s order against the Medina Valley Independent School District also forbids students from using specific religious words including “prayer” and “amen.”
The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by Christa and Danny Schultz. Their son is among those scheduled to participate in Saturday’s graduation ceremony. The judge declared that the Schultz family and their son would “suffer irreparable harm” if anyone prayed at the ceremony.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the school district is in the process of appealing the ruling, and his office has agreed to file a brief in their support.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Of course we would. But that is not what is happening here. A graduation ceremony is almost always an optional event, so there is no "having" to sit through a 2 minute long prayer if someone chooses not to do so.
Why not pray with your children at home?
Why do you want the Government to lead your children in prayer?
Do really want the Government teaching religion to your children?
Truth be told we plan to sidestep all this crap by homeschooling our children. We know it won't be easy but the sacrifice will be worth it. We do not want publicly-funded atheist schools to proselytize to our children.
I am sick of these agitators always wanting the rest of the country to make an exception just for them. Why don't these people stay home and leave everyone else at peace.
I take it you aren’t an American History major. Go learn some and get back to us.
The principle of separation of Church and State is premised upon Christianity as the only sound relationship with God with its derivation from the late 1400s.
Yes, the principles upon which the US was founded were Judeo-Christian and not any other pagan or cultic construct.
Would you have a problem if your children had to sit through Muslim prayers five times a day during their Government sponsored public school.
Doe Eyes ducked the question about being an Obama troll. Tells me all I need to know. He/she could care less about truth. Just here to cause grief.
Entirely correct and coincidentally I had the same thought.
Many extracurricular aspects of school such as sports, plays, proms, etc. are holdovers from America’s agrarian past when a institutions (including - gasp - churches) acted as hubs of social interaction when many families were isolated on farms or in small rural clusters that sprang up around railroad stations, bodies of water, etc.
Extracurricular activities became a pawn in leftists’ usual twin pursuits of indoctrination and edicts from the courts. We’ve seen proms and dances reduced to a sideshow with cross-dressing ‘queens,’ students barely out of puberty who are convinced they are gay for life and must take a same-sex partner, etc. Plays and musicals ignore entertainment value and instead must convey a ‘message’ (which adheres to liberal orthodoxy of course). And then there are the holidays where disagreements and lawsuits over Christmas and religious themes are an annual rite.
For some reason, parents and sympathizers seem content to fight these battles on the home turf of liberal ‘educators’ and courts. But, as you’ve pointed out, the real solution is to take the bat out of their hands altogether move any school activity that isn’t actual school off campus entirely and away from the control freaks and malcontents.
Sports? Establish club teams like the rest of the world. This would also eliminate the nonsense involved with kids crossing district lines simply to play on a better team, etc.
Plays? Community theater involving experienced adults from whom the kids can learn. Makes casting parts easier as well since a larger age range is available.
Proms & dances? Again, establish a community social organization. Hold the events at a privately-owned facility and state the conditions of attendance: dress code, behavior, M-F couples only. Anyone choosing not to adhere to the rules can find another activity. No lawsuits, no student walkouts, no protest votes, no soppy USA Today editorials required. They may try of course but at least ‘public accommodation’ won’t be part of their lazy legal strategy.
Holidays? Big bonus here. Have Christian events at Christian churches! Arthur and Annie Atheist can sit at home with Little Andy Atheist and stare at the walls...or they can attend the lame ‘Winter Festival’ held at the school.
Graduation? This one is admittedly tricky since it is specific to academia. I say let the school have its ceremony but stage a private one elsewhere. Your child has already earned his diploma by virtue of completing school - there’s nothing to say he can’t have a cap-and-gown event involving speeches and possibly even prayer outside the school with his classmates.
Yes all this requires effort but at least the effort has a guaranteed good outcome as opposed to hiring lawyers to fight an unwinnable war against activist judges.
Wrong. Our country was founded on religious freedom period.
Straw man. Graduations happen 1 day a year, not 365.
Again, we are a Christian nation, regardless of what Obama says. Speaking of which, are you the person he hired to push his policies last week? Sure seems like you back his constitutional interpretations.
I take it you aren’t an American History major. Go learn some and get back to us.
I'm getting ready to take down several big, straight, tall pines (beetle infestation). And I'm seriously considering splitting them into rails -- and offering them free -- to any group of patriots who will tar and feather and ride a bunch of these anti-American judges out of town on them.
Any takers?
~~~~~~~~
(Switching in an appropriate tagline...)
Really weak. Is that the best you can do?
I agree 100% with everything you posted. This is the best way to help society “decompress” from public schools. When people realize they can do these things on their own, then people will stop putting up with this type of BS.
This is going to be so harsh, but you need it, apparently. What you have tried to float as a reasonable conjecture is in fact THE GOVERNMENT FORCING RELIGION ON WE THE PEOPLE. If you cannot see THAT, what hope have we of educating you as to what this Republic is?
You do not understand Christianity.
No human being can ever make another human Christian nor convert them to Christianity. Those who really do not understand this, read their own arrogant thinking into their accusations of Christianity as simply another comparative religion, thinking that human influence is a substitute for a sincere faith in Christ.
Public prayer placed God first for the people praying. The object of their faith is nonmeritorious, but instead directed to God. When this is denied the public, the public is being forced to publicly acknowledge somebody other than God as their authority in their thinking. This is unconstitutional.
People do not have to understand Christianity, in order to respect the God given rights of their fellow man, but it appears many arrogant judges and plaintiffs seek for their denial of God to usurp the God given rights of free men to express their thoughts towards Him publicly.
There is a very simple solution to this; parents should band together, rent a room, and hold their own competing graduation. Those intersted in a fully free graduation w/ prayer can go to this privately held ceremony and the one loser kid, the loser judge, the cops, and the administration can hold their graduation in an empty hall.
Why not pray with your children at home?
Why do you want the Government to lead your children in prayer?
Do really want the Government teaching religion to your children?
#1 It’s not every day, it’s at one occasion where it has been traditional to say a prayer, no doubt asking for the blessings of God. Atheists apparently don’t want blessings from anyone other than themselves, which I guess you could say is the same as asking blessings from *their* god.
#2 If I were a Christian in a majority Muslim nation, I would expect to hear Muslim prayers at least once a day. It would be stupidly dense of me to tell a Muslim in the heart of Tehran, Bahgdad, Medina, Jakarta, Istanbul, or any other city in a majority Muslim country to shut up and go pray somewhere out of sight.
#3 No representative of government is going to be leading the prayer or even suggesting that a prayer be said at the graduation. Red herring.
I have no problem with Muslim children saying their prayers at school. I also have no problem with Christians and Jews saying their prayers at school. And I certainly have no problem with students saying a prayer at their graduation.
I do have a problem with fascists like you who support moronic Judges who ban words in the public square. And it's none of your damn business whether people pray in private or public. Comprende? You have no right not to be offended and neither does the Schultz kid so if I've offended you too damn bad.
Nor do I, but I think they should pray silently to themselves.
Why should everyone have to listen to the others prayers?
Sounds like big Goverment to me.
There is a Constitutionally protected right to the free exercise of religion.
Now, read my tagline.
I can read the Bible, and Jesus Christ does not support public prayer.
Matthew 6:5-6 King James Version (KJV)
5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
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