From Pine View Farm

God in Schools 3

This sounds like a good decision to me:

A school district violated a fourth-grader’s constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection by refusing to allow her to distribute “personal statement” fliers carrying a religious message, a federal judge has ruled.

The Liverpool Central School District in upstate New York based its restrictions on “fear or apprehension of disturbance, which is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression,” Chief U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue wrote in a 46-page decision Friday

(snippage)

Bloodgood’s requests to school officials said that her daughter, now a sixth-grader, would hand them out only during “non-instructional time,” such as on the bus, before school, lunch, recess and after school.

The lawsuit noted that Michaela had received literature from other students at school, including materials for a YMCA basketball camp, a Syracuse Children’s Theater promotion and Camp Fire USA’s summer camps.

The Constitution of the United States of America says (now, note! I’m quoting the actual Constitution, not the Bushie version):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The issue with prayer and other religious observances in public (that is, government-run) schools, regardless of how it has been misrepresented ad nauseum is this: The government and its agents are prohibited from promoting religion–any religion and all religions.

That’s all there is to it. There ain’t no more.

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3 comments

  1. Opie

    April 3, 2007 at 9:13 pm

    Well, there’s just a little bit more. Quoting from the decision:

    A governmental practice which touches on religion does not offend the Establishment
    Clause if (1) it has a secular purpose, (2) it neither advances nor inhibits religion, and (3) it does not create an excessive entanglement of government with religion. See Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403
    U.S. 602, 612-13 (1971).

    Emphasis mine.

     
  2. Frank

    April 5, 2007 at 5:13 pm

    Link?