-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The school board in Giles County, VA, has decided to remove the Ten Commandments posters in all local schools. The Virginia ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation had plaintiffs and threatened lawsuits that the school board would have almost surely lost. The school board decided it could better spend the estimated $300,000 cost of a lawsuit on instruction that wasn’t religious.
The Giles County school board has been getting advice from Mathew D. Staver, dean of the Jerry Falwell-founded Liberty University School of Law. Staver recently lost another round when the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert in a Kentucky Ten Commandments dispute, leaving in place the lower court decision barring governmental promotion of religion.
Does Liberty University provide or recommend the attorneys who would have gotten the $300,000 of precious tax dollars? After advising school boards regarding religious displays, do they then collect fees defending against almost certain defeat? You have to admire the ingenuity.
This means that the children of Giles County will suffer from a dangerous indoctrination gap. During the gap, reason Satan has an opportunity to slip in. This is especially true for the young. If you don’t get them early in life, it becomes almost impossible to get them as adults. The young are malleable and trusting, and while in school, they’re a captive audience. It’s a temptation that no religion can resist.
H/T: Secular News Daily.
Chan,
Yup, that’s exactly what this story shows. Progressive’s taking advantage of the Public school system to share their ideology. Same thing’s happening in Texas.
ACLU Says High School Students Should Be Allowed To Post 10 Commandments On Their Lockers
According to WSLS-TV News, the ACLU of Virginia is supporting the right of Floyd County, Virginia high school students to post their personal views– including copies of the Ten Commandments– on their own school locker doors. Apparently Floyd County High School administrators removed copies of the Ten Commandments from lockers of members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes under a school policy that requires school approval for postings on lockers other than messages such as “happy birthday” or “go team.” The ACLU’s e-mail to the school principal on Friday (quoted in full in the WSLS-TV report) points out that “allowing students to express their religious views on their lockers is not the same as the school itself posting the Ten Commandments or other religious documents.” The ACLU says that the 1st Amendment bars the school from treating students’ religious speech less favorably than other forms of speech.
Where did “ranquility” go
domestic Tranquility, provide
Too bad the “framers” of the Constitution framed the United States of America by mistake?
Methinks a constitutional preamble frames the constitution.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic T, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I would allow the strict constructionist view its validity save for a funny glitch in the Constitution, Article V:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Housed shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of he several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner Affect the first and fourth clauses in he Ninth Section of the first Article; that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of equal Suffrage in the Senate.
The key, to me (as a former voluntary mental patient) of the preamble (not so named in the Constitution) is found within that “to form a more perfect Union” bit. It makes no intelligible sense to me to presume that the Constitutional founders thought of the Constitution as a fait accompli, or they would not have bothered with that meddlesome Article V.
I may be mistaken, yet the alternative to a happening that is totally completed is a happening not totally completed. And that rules out, for me, the notion that the contemporary meaning of the Constitution, with respect to situations and circumstances which were not possibly foreseeable well over two hundred years ago cannot possibly be found within the understanding of the founders as they were not alive now, back then, so as to have clear experiential understanding of what was more than two hundred years in their they-died-before-it-happened future.
Now, as it happens, I just do not have any place in my life for dogmas; my wife and I do have catmas (Itty Kit and Lucy); for us, dogs and their mas are more trouble. Too much work to walk them. Cats walk themselves, thank you. Planned Parenthood principles took care of the mas of Itty Kit and Lucy. Who misses what never was?
My problem with every religious establishment doctrine teaching is found within the way every religious establishment teaching is soon made obsolete by existence disestablishing it by the process whereby existence evolves.
Beware of sheep in wolves’ clothing?
“The young are malleable and trusting, and while in school, they’re a captive audience. It’s a temptation that no religion can resist.”
yep, exactly. That is why progressives like the public school system. Get em while they are young and indoctrinate them early.
Then they believe that socialism actually works.
Brought to you by Obama and Bush:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/us/26tents.html
Just FWIW, here’s the local story on the Floyd schools. Sadly the idea that kids will learn something — as opposed to being reinforced in their (or mostly their parent’s) self-congratulatory, if unconstitutional, views — seems unlikely. You can pretty much guarantee that the ‘authorities’ will not dispassionately and clearly explain the divergent views and the constitutional realities. Perhaps the rare civics teacher will provide the information.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/wb/278297
Will miracles ever cease – and in Virginia no less!
Buddha,
Why do the kids need to learn anything about the Constitution? The Tea Party already has that covered, don’t they??
Well then. According to DonS? There goes any chance of these kids learning anything. Well, learning anything useful about civics and the Constitution that is.
I live the next county over from Giles, and worked in Giles for about 20 years. The nasty slur “fucking rednecks” actually get’s close to describing the place, or at least the power structure; not that much different from a lot of rural Appalachia, truth be told. Although, as y’all know, rednecks are ubiquitous.
The current ‘resolution’ to the controversy — which the Board of Education members enacted triumphally in open session, and retracted sheepishly in 7:30 a.m. closed session — is to regale in the mini victory that allows students to plaster the ten commandments all over the outside of their individual lockers. (this particular affectation is now slopping over into Floyd County schools, which just happens to be the next county over but to the east. (Bingo, I’m in Montgomery)
As noted, “The young are malleable and trusting”, and this whole stand up for Jesus malady has become the macho projection of the Christianity ‘under siege’ right wing. Reminds me of the equally noxious phrase from my long gone youth: “Kill a Commie for Christ”.
What Buddha said! I especially was gratified to see Jerry Falwell’s law school on the losing side of this issue. Frank also said it correctly when he compared this to the Republicans decrying Sharia law. It is pretty amazing when it is a big story (IMO)when a school district actually follows the Constitution. Imagine that! That kind of thinking could get out of hand.
It’s TREASON, not just unacceptable.
Just remember, forcing your religious beliefs on others is a good thing . . . unless it is ‘sharia law’ then it is simply unacceptable.
Anonymously Yours 1, February 26, 2011 at 8:29 am
Obeying because they want too….. I am sure…
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well, you cannot have your cake and eat it too!
Obeying because they want too….. I am sure…
Sweet. People running a school board who can both read and do arithmetic. Those kids might actually learn something.
The fact that Staver and Falwell’s Beast School of Law with their theocratic agenda took one on the nose is just gravy.