Posted on 06/17/2004 7:21:12 AM PDT by esryle
COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- When Covington schools Superintendent Jack Moreland saw an advertisement for a Chippendales show, he thought it would be a good morale booster for his female employees. So he shelled out $420 to send 20 female staff members to a Chippendales show to see buff men strip off most of their clothing.
It worked, but it also raised the ire of at least one person, who wrote an anonymous letter to the state Office of Education Accountability accusing Moreland of using school-district funds to pay for the strip show.
Moreland said he spent $420 of his own money for the show - and faxed his personal credit-card receipt to investigators.
"I did it in fun, and they went in fun, and I don't think there was any harm done," he said.
Bryan Jones, a lawyer for the Office of Education Accountability, said he couldn't confirm or deny whether his office looked into a complaint.
The women who attended the show said they enjoyed it.
"We just laughed and laughed and laughed," said Jena Meehan, the superintendent's secretary. "It was a spectacle, to be sure, and to have all of us there was even funnier."
Chippendales is a high-class male revue that became popular in the 1980s. Well-muscled young men wearing bow-ties and bare chests strip to scanty undies for female audiences.
Moreland is the former president of the Council for Better Education, the superintendents group that brought the historic lawsuit that resulted in the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 and its revolutionary reform of Kentucky's public schools.
If even the teacher is going to strip shows, then that must be normal behavior.
RESULT 1) And if it's normal to watch striptease acts, then it's probably normal to have sex outside of marriage.
RESULT 2) Even if they don't instantly make the leap to extramarital sex, you've created the impression in the kid that it is ok to watch sexually charged shows which will stroke their desire for extra-marital sex.
In short, you've created an atmosphere of normalicy around behavior that will lead the kids to failure.
In my mind those were pretty easy dots to connect, but I suppose you still can't see it.
you really are dangerous...i'm sorry your children will learn such things from you. Jews, Muslims and Christians are all Abrahamic religions, all coming from the same source of ancient Judaism. Their God is no different than your God, or mine. These are the three major monotheistic religions, and they all come from the same place. Have you taught your children that?
I'm curious - what do you tell your children happens to Jews when they die? We have rejected Jesus as the Messiah - does that make us all doomed to your hell? Do you really think that there is a God that would condemn so many of his own children to suffering simply because they refuse to believe a certain thing, even if they live lives of goodness? If so, I want nothing to do with your idea of God - my God loves all of his children so long as they live according to his basic rules of life, those being the ten commandments. Not all Muslims do, but not all Christians or Jews or anyone else does.
you are the sort of Christian that makes other Christians look bad - the sort that would tell a young impressionable child that people they know nothing about are condemned to Hell simply because they have not chosen to believe as you do, no matter what they do with their lives. There are in fact many wonderful things about Islam - I don't pretend I know a great deal about the religion, but I do know that just as the Crusades didn't make Christianity itself evil, the suicide bombers do not make Islam evil. Those people are evil, not the religion.
I dunno - when my husband goes to a strip club he comes home wanting me, not someone else. When he sees someone on the street that stokes his libido, he turns to me. See, it's natural to LOOK outside of the relationship for stimulation, and then use that INSIDE the relationship to heat things up. If I spent some time watching a bunch of guys and it made me want sex, I'd go running home to my husband to have some, not find someone else to do it with.
In my mind those were pretty easy dots to connect, but I suppose you still can't see it.
your mind works in some pretty disturbing ways, ways in which (thankfully) most people's don't. lots of people can view things outside a relationship and not immediately leap into bed with a stranger.
By your silence in responding to that aspect, you basically conceded that indeed you operate under certain absolutes (okay, I'll use your phrase of consistent, ongoing, always-applied guideline to soften the blow here) that you live by and apply to ethical decision-making.
We all have them. Call them absolutes, convictions, values, ethics, guidelines, principles, applied worldviews, mandates, directives, commandments, moral codes, or whatever else.
Aside from my minor comments--and obviously you disagreed w/me extending your applied worldviews to broader applications, my overall theme in drawing those together was to convince you that indeed you do operate on certain compass-points.
Now, what do your absolutes all have in common? The answer is in the area of accountability. Those who tend to cite the "don't judge" Jesus scripture are trying to avoid accountability for others or self. You also have consistently posted a reasonable, practical argument that if a local group sanctions these educators, that is fine since it's w/in their perview to do so. But if an individual tries to do so, then, no, an individual can't define for someone else how to behave. While that's a good general guideline, it carries some fallibilities. My major point w/the Wallenberg illustration was not so much the action (Holocaust) he was trying to prevent as much as the fact that a lone individual can indeed be right and can indeed be right in trying to define how someone else behaves. You were focusing on the actions of the Nazis whereas the major point of my illustration was to focus on the action of Wallenberg as one lone voice crying out in the wilderness. (I mean Wallenberg wasn't wrestling Jews out of the hands of Nazis; he was giving them jobs & assigning them Swedish-protected papers).
William Wilberforce and his small Clapham sect for years upon years (late 18th century) tried to define how the entire country of England should act, even though they were not slave owners. Wilberforce finally got his way in opposing a practice that was completely legal in England.
Again, the key point here, is that once again your absolute here zeroes in on staving off accountability from lone sources. John the Baptist, one of the greatest Jews who ever lived (Jesus referred to him as such), one time took on Herod the ruler over an issue that was completely legal. Herod was sleeping with his brother's wife, Herodias. (see Luke 3:19). John the Baptist publicly rebuked him. I guess you would take issue with that.
I suppose you would, had you lived then, had the gall to go tell John the Baptist to stop being a busybody. Who Herod slept with was not only completely legal, but was not John's business. John's underlying ethic there, is what Paul later said (to the Corinthians): "You are not your own. Your body is not your own. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit." So, once again, we are accountable in the way we use our bodies (Paul was objecting to someone in the Corinthian church who was sleeping with his father's wife).
Here again, I'm sure you would tell off Paul: "Who are you, a non-Corinthian, to come in here and tell the Corinthians how to live? If they want a person sleeping w/his father's wife to be in the midst of their church, live and let live. There's nothing illegal about that. If the Corinthian church wants to decide to sanction that, let them decide. Let their community decide. If they decide there's a problem, then will you be quiet?" [bold-face, your own quote]
You see, this whole thrust of trying to quiet still, lone voices is the liberals' greatest thrust vs. living lives of accountability. In a word, it's what one Christian thinker has called "safism"--the attempt to make the world safe for all atheists.
that's because you didn't prove your point. An absolute and a guideline are different things - an absolute, according to Merriam-Webster, is "having no restriction, exception, or qualification" while a guideline is "an indication or outline of policy or conduct". Clearly an indication or outline leaves room for consideration of various aspects of a situation, while the absolute would require me to come to the same conclusion in all areas, as you are trying to make it seem I would do. Since I don't think you are convincing anyone but yourself, I'm really not going to waste a lot of energy refuting that I was and would have been then (were I alive) opposed to the Nazis and in support of anyone who opposed them actively. This is because they were taking part in genocide, something which the people most directly affected HAD NO SAY. Therefore they had to be protected by outside sources because they could not simply gather together, go to Hitler and let him know that they were opposed to his death camps. I somehow don't think that would have done much good.
Mi>Those who tend to cite the "don't judge" Jesus scripture are trying to avoid accountability for others or self. You also have consistently posted a reasonable, practical argument that if a local group sanctions these educators, that is fine since it's w/in their perview to do so. But if an individual tries to do so, then, no, an individual can't define for someone else how to behave. While that's a good general guideline, it carries some fallibilities.
sure, that's why it's a guideline, which is merely an outline for how I approach a situation. Given the facts of this situation as I see them, I see no reason that you, a complete outsider to this situation, should have any say whatsoever in what happens to these teachers. You can spout your opinion all you want, I just don't believe you have any position to actually censure these teachers yourself. In a situation like the Holocaust, other factors would cause me to determine that this guideline must be dropped, as the situation is so garish that it cannot be ignored just because we are not in the vicinity.
John the Baptist, one of the greatest Jews who ever lived (Jesus referred to him as such), one time took on Herod the ruler over an issue that was completely legal. Herod was sleeping with his brother's wife, Herodias. (see Luke 3:19). John the Baptist publicly rebuked him. I guess you would take issue with that.
first of all, I don't care who Jesus said was the best Jew, because I don't consider Jesus one of the best Jews either. He's a prophet who had his time and it's done now, according to my religion and beliefs. So, your insistence on throwing Jesus in my face to make a point is beyond ridiculous, not to mention demonstrative of your utter lack of respect for people with a different world view than your own. As for your particular question, I suppose he was sort of a busy body as far as that goes, but I really don't care whatsoever about what theoretical biblical figures did or didn't do.
You see, this whole thrust of trying to quiet still, lone voices is the liberals' greatest thrust vs. living lives of accountability. In a word, it's what one Christian thinker has called "safism"--the attempt to make the world safe for all atheists.
ah, i was wondering how long it would take you to infer I was speaking like a liberal. Well let me ask you this - why SHOULDN'T the world be safe for atheists? I don't think they have a right to remove all signs of Christianity from the public square as they like to do, but I don't see a reason they shouldn't be safe and basically left alone. I only object to those atheists who try to force everyone to act like atheists, much as I object to Christians who try to force everyone to act like Christians. YOu have decided your morality is the compass by which we should all live, and that's your right. It is not your right, however, to punish people for actions you and only you disapprove of. Even John the Baptist only rebuked Herod - he didn't get him fired.
We haven't got to that level yet. But I will tell them that some Jews listened to the prophets, recognized Jesus and became Christians, and other Jews failed to listen to their own prophets who told them about Jesus and are in violation of the Mosaic covenant.
I did tell the older one that Mohammed tried to pass himself off as a prophet to Jews and Christians, but that he failed the test of a prophet that had been given by Moses some 2000 years earlier. Thus the Jews and the Christians who knew the scripture were able to recognize Mohammed instantly as a fraud and didn't accept him as a prophet. Whereupon Mohammed got mad and started his own religion and it's why he taught his followers not to be friends with Jews or Christians.
"What do you tell your children happens to Jews when they die?"
I will tell them the above that the Jews are in violation of their own covenant with God. I will point out the Old Testament scripture that supports and should have led the Jews to Jesus. I will explain that their rejection of Jesus is why Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70 exactly as Jesus foretold. I will also tell them that God still has a plan for Israel. That Israel's coming back to be a nation again in 1947 was God's hand at work in order to fulfill the prophecies. Those prophesies include that a reborn Israel will finally accept Jesus as the Messiah 3.5 years into the reign of the Anti-Christ.
As for those Jews who rejected Jesus and won't live to be part of the above prophecy, I have very little hope. Perhaps there is some way that God can apply Jesus's sacrifice to them, since they still look to God for forgiveness even though they have rejected his plan. But I will also point out the many verses in the Bible that indicate that is not very likely. I will point out how Jesus wept over Jerusalem, that Jesus was a Jew and that God loves the Jews as He loves all of us and that it hurts Him when people reject Him and His plan.
But I will not gloss over that God is a God of Justice. And that he told us in the beginning that sin leads to death.
"We have rejected Jesus as the Messiah - does that make us all doomed to your hell? "
Well I just realized that you are Jewish. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Either you are right and we Christians are guilty of worshiping a madman who claimed to be God. Or we Christians are right, and you failed to listen to the prophets. There is no in between.
"If so, I want nothing to do with your idea of God - my God loves all of his children so long as they live according to his basic rules of life, those being the ten commandments."
Have you read your own scriptures? God's already passed judgement. He says repeatedly in the Jewish scriptures, that "None are righteous". It's why the whole animal sacrifice system was set up. To teach you that a substitution would have to be made.
The Jewish God is a God who tried extremely hard to impress upon the Jewish people and through them the rest of the world, the importance of paying close attention to what He told you.
When David tried to move the Ark of the Covenant without following God's explicit instructions, people died. Would your God do that? He did!!! Why?
In Moses' day, when God sent serpents among Israel. Anyone who was bitten died unless they obeyed God's commandment to look at this statue of a serpent that Moses erected on a pole. Think about how bizarre that is for a minute. Not only did this God who want's no image of Himself constructed, and who is constantly fighting pagan idols, have Moses build a statue of a Serpent (the very symbol of sin), but he commanded that anyone in Israel who failed to look to it would die!!! WHY??? What was he trying to tell you??? That he would nail sin to a tree and you would have to look to it for salvation or die!
This God who is know for love and peace and gave us the commandment "Thow shalt not murder", told Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. Again how bizarre!!!! What was he trying to tell you???? That He would provide a substitute sacrifice. That He would offer His own Son.
The reason God was so severe in some of these examples is that the stakes are worse than life and death. The stakes are spiritual life and death.
I mentioned Jewish scriptures pointing to Jesus. The following website points out a few. But there are many others, that include the timing of the Messiah, his birthplace, etc.
There is no doubt in my mind that God loves you, as he does all men. But he is a terrible, terrible God to those who insist on remaining on the wrong side of Justice.
Daniel 12:2 - And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
I refuse to debate this with you because you have made up your mind and you insist on believing yourself better than all those who hold a different viewpoint. YOu are the worst of the religious right - the ones even _I_ will warn my children about, and I have the greatest respect for religion and religious people. But only those who are capable of extending that respect to others outside their little circle.
Daniel 12:2 - And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Did the Jews do something in the first century that caused this?
Do they even address it?
I'm just curious.
Are all religions O.K.? Or just the three monotheist ones? What about Hindus and Buddists?
Was Elijah out of line when he mocked and jeered the Baal prophets?
1 Kings 18:27 And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not mocking and jeering the Jews. I can see how as a Jew you might reject Jesus, but I can't see how you think all religion is O.K. based on the Jewish scriptures.
Bull hokers Mr. "It Takes A Village", you only have what privileges I grant you as far as my kids are concerned, and that's not one of them.
And those teachers should have only the privileges the parents of the kids in that community grant them. And if the parents have a problem with the role model the teacher is setting, those parents have the right to demand their dismissal, and more importantly the dimissal of the Superintendant who initiated this.
Which is teaching the established curriculum, within the established guidelines, and leaving your feeling on the subject out. Teachers are employed by the system, the system has no control over how they spend their time while not being paid, and the most certainly have no right to discipline them for attending a legal event being staged in the community.
I'm certain that there are regulations which demand that a teacher be fired if CONVICTED of breaking a law. There can't possibly be any regulations set in place that would allow for teachers to be fired because they scandalized an individual's sense of propriety.
Wrong. State law provides for evaluting a teacher on their integrity as well as on their actions with greater political and cutural environments.
At least in Tennessee and probably in most areas. That is the established guidelines. The system does have some control and does have the right to discipline them.
Those are the facts. Deal with it.
Oh for pity's sake! Now you've got these women cheating on their husbands! This is ALL supposition. You KNOW nothing!
Given your religious statements here, I will suppose that you are likely to become a Jim Jones type and induce a whole lot of people to mass suicide.
My supposition is just as valid as yours.
I didn't mean to imply that the teachers would have extra-marital sex. By extra-marital I meant anything outside of marriage including pre-marital sex.
I did mean to imply that if peep shows are treated as normal, that it's easy to assume other sexual behaviors are normal.
Good morn-ing. I am R3D3, your sub-sti-tute tea-cher for the day.
Reductionism: Liberals like to reduce the number of those who object to the ed system to one ("oh, it's just those religious nuts") --which they label as homogenous and treat as one entity. You could have a rich diversity of religious & general community-based folks complaining about something, and liberals will reduce that chorus of voices to "an individual's sense of propriety" motivated by the same religious spring.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.