To: RonF
"Of course you have the right to speak about God. What you don't have is the right to have a government agency organize such speech, or provide a forum for it. "
According to the quote attributed to the gentleman who brought suit, the problem was not that his daughter had to participate. The problem was she had to listen.
Please see article here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/fo cus/news/706612/posts
Does this mean that we can insist that mosques stop broadcasting the call to prayer when it can be heard on a "public" street?
Do we stop all mention of God on the radio which is regulated by the publicly funded FCC?
Do we stop all mention of atheism in public schools since "theos" is the greek word for God? You have to discuss the concept of God before you can discuss the concept of NO God.
Or is "equal protection under the law" an antiquated belief as well?
How far do we want to take it?
1,256 posted on
06/26/2002 9:01:45 PM PDT by
Helix
To: Helix
"According to the quote attributed to the gentleman who brought suit, the problem was not that his daughter had to participate. The problem was she had to listen."
That's right. She had to listen to the government both organize religious speech, and provide a forum for it. Which the government can't do.
"Does this mean that we can insist that mosques stop broadcasting the call to prayer when it can be heard on a "public" street?"
Not unless it's under a general noise complaint that's independent of the content. The forum is the private mosque, not the public street, and it's not being organized by the government.
"Do we stop all mention of God on the radio which is regulated by the publicly funded FCC?"
No, the whole intent of the FCC is to regulate the airwaves to ensure that there is equal access to a limited resource. Past issues of obscenity, it's not there to regulate speech. It's there to ensure free speech. Since the airwaves are supposed to be a public forum (which schools are not), religious speech on the airwaves is protected, unless the government itself is running the radio/TV station in question, I'd think.
"Do we stop all mention of atheism in public schools since "theos" is the greek word for God? You have to discuss the concept of God before you can discuss the concept of NO God."
Hard enough to get the kids to understand English, I don't think we have to worry about them hearing Greek.
1,261 posted on
06/26/2002 9:25:56 PM PDT by
RonF
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