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Excellent solution.
Actually, a little tolerance on the part of the “unidentified concerned parent” is what I’d prefer.
Good for them, and when asked they must say ONE parent complained that there would be a blessing over the children.
Excellent, excellent, do not cave.
No this is NOT an excellent solution. They are cratering to the jerk who complained. They should say go ahead, cancel the ceremony, and then publicize the name of the jerk who did the complaining. And I mean have that person's name on every local tv and radio station and in the newspaper. Let that person's neighbors know who caused their children to miss a milestone in their young life.
Our biggest complaint with the Republican party is they also cower before any democrat. This is the same type of action.
I can pray without anyone realizing it.
Can’t ban that.
They should find the name of this “concerned parent”, and expose them. These people are such cowards, running to FFRF.
I still can’t figure out WHY there are “6th grade graduations” in the first place.....sheesh.
I thought you graduated upon finishing high school.
I have asked before and ask again why is the exercise of the First Amendment (free speech and free exercise of religion) prohibited on public property? If the Bill of Rights is not applicable to public property, then what is the point?
Mr. Elliott needs an ass kicking, Texas style.
They should have called their bluff.
Who gives a crap what the SCOTUS says? The Constitution is clear: "CONGRESS shall make no law..." States can do as they please, thanks to the 10th Amendment. All the AK Gov. needs to do is nullify any Federal rulings.
If there was a parent objecting, I wonder if they have the cajones to skip the graduation?
I think the parents were exactly right in doing things this way, as they win across the board, and the hothead, if there was one, and their child, get nothing out of the deal.
And the best part is that, if they and their child don’t show up, everybody knows that they are malcontents, so in future they should be excluded from any event where they might make themselves an oppressive nuisance again.
If that means they miss out on all sorts of fun, well how about that?
Please note that this issue is a tangle of constitutional problems, so please bear with my explanation.
Partly as a consequence of parents not making sure that their children are taught the differences between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the federal and state governments, the misguided Supreme Court is getting away with legislating from the bench on prayer issues like this one imo.
More specifically, first note that regardless what FDR's activist justices wanted everybody to beileve about the Establishment Clause and Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation," the real Thomas Jefferson had clarified the following about the religious aspects of the 1st and 10th Amendments. Jefferson had noted that the Founding States had made the 10th Amendment in part to clarify that the states had reserved government power to regulate (I say cultivate) religious expression to themselves, regardless that they had also made the 1st Amendment in part to prohibit such power to Congress entirely.
"3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed (emphasis added); …" --Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.
So given that the states have the power to regulate religion, the same power that enables the states to authorize creationism to be taught in public schools, there would have been no question up to the time that the 14th Amendment was ratified that Christian prayers at a graduation are constituitonal.
H O W E V E R ...
The 14th Amendment ultimately gave FDR's anti-religious expression justices a foothold to argue that 14A applied the 1st Amendment's prohibition on Congress's power to regulate religion to the states. This is evidenced by the following excerpt from Cantwell v. Connecticut.
"The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Fourteenth Amendment has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact such laws. The constitutional inhibition of legislation on the subject of religion has a double aspect." --Mr. Justice Roberts, Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 1940.
H O W E V E R ...
By arguing that 14A took away certain powers from the states, in this case the power to address religious issues which "atheist" Thomas Jefferson had clarified that they had, activist justices wrongly ignored the following. They ignored that John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of 14A, had officially clarified that 14A took away no state's rights.
"The adoption of the proposed amendment will take from the States no rights (emphasis added) that belong to the States." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 1866. (See second half of first column.)"No right (emphasis added) reserved by the Constitution to the States should be impaired…" --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 1871. (See first half of first column.)
"Do gentlemen say that by so legislating we would strike down the rights of the State? God forbid. I believe our dual system of government essential to our national existance." --John Bingham, Appendix to the Congressional Globe. (See second half of third column.)
In fact, note that Justice Reed had noted the following about the 10th and 14th Amendments. Justice Reed had indicated that it is the job of judges to balance 10A protected state powers with 14A protected rigts.
"Conflicts in the exercise of rights arise and the conflicting forces seek adjustments in the courts, as do these parties, claiming on the one side the freedom of religion, speech and the press, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and on the other the right to employ the sovereign power explicitly reserved to the State by the Tenth Amendment to ensure orderly living without which constitutional guarantees of civil liberties would be a mockery." --Justice Reed, Jones v. City of Opelika, 1942.
So the states still have the power to regulate religion regardless what activist justices want every to think about 14A, state power to regulate religion now limited by 14A as opposed to the idea that 14A took away such power. The problem is that regardless that Christian parents / guardians are making sure that their children are being taught the Holy Bible, Christians are evidently not making such that their children are being taught the law of the land as constitutonal lawmakers had intended for it to be understood.
Insane. They think the little angels able enough to handle political discussions, sports discussions, philosophical discussions, science discussions, literature discussions, etc.
"Oh no" said grief-stricken democrat mom, "Poor Johnny is being turned into a CONSERVATIVE by that conservative-speaking History teacher." Don't hear that too much, do you?
The Supreme Court ruled we must protect his conscience, not everyone's FREE SPEECH and FREE EXERCISE.
Therefore, Scotus is wrong and religion is uniquely set apart and disadvantaged compared to other influences. That is discrimination.
Why are there sixth grade ‘graduations’ anyway?